Still Life with Skull
by The Divine Comedian
Summary: COMPLETE. September 1974 and Remus goes a bit loopy, what with the moon, and the teenage wolf, and his friends who are not Animagi yet, and the creepy dead thing that is following him around. Sirius had a horrible summer, too. (MWPP 4th year, Gen)
1. Chapter 1

**Note** : This came from me thinking about how Remus's relationship with the wolf changes as they're both growing, so I wrote a thing about that, and then a lot of layers just turned up out of nowhere, so I rewrote the thing, and now I really need to post the first chapter before this gets too clever for me to handle, haha. I am expecting about 3-ish chapters.

For those of you who appreciate a completed fic, the summer of 1974 is sort of referenced in one of my other stories, They're Hiding Inside Me (granted, it's referenced as the thing they don't talk about, so make of that what you will).

Feedback of all kinds is of course always cherished!

 **Warnings** : …yes. These kids sure think about death a lot. And some of it is of the suicidal variety. _And_ they're being terribly unconstructive about it. Also: violence, injuries, child abuse, and some puberty-related body dysphoria later.

* * *

 **Still Life with Skull**

* * *

Remus Lupin has never been particularly punctual, with two notable exceptions: One being the obvious one, and the other being King's Cross. He's always early for the Hogwarts Express, he and his shabby possessions and his Muggle mum and his absent Dad and the heart-stopping fear that the train is going to leave him behind this time. Then fate will catch up with him, and he'll have to be less than ordinary again.

He's less terrified nowadays, but for old times' sake, Professor R. J. Lupin crosses the near-empty platform early on a rainy September morning and claims an empty compartment, as if he's still saving them seats.

* * *

Fenrir Greyback got to him when he was four, but Remus has been mostly okay. It's not until he's fourteen that fate knocks and says, _remember me?_

And when it does, he opens the door wide and says, how could I forget. You're the wolf, and you're all my moons, and you're thirty pieces of silver. You're always coming for me.

 _Remember you might die within the decade,_ says fate _. Remember you might die within the year_.

Hold on, he says. I don't want to die. I don't even have my O.W.L.s yet. I haven't kissed anyone I like. I'll leave nothing but bloodstains on floorboards and three heavier hearts. Then what was the point?

 _I'm fate,_ says fate. _I don't deal in fairness_.

* * *

September of 1974 brings with it a sharp drop in temperature and wind gusts that tug and shake and slow down the Hogwarts Express. Remus has saved his friends seats on the train, as he usually does.

The train ride is chillier than usual, and it's clear why. Even in one of his post-summer moods, Sirius Black is a catalyst: They need him to be funny. But his seat, today, is empty.

Peter bravely attempts conversation anyway. His choice of topic, however, is counterproductive. "I'll need to lay off the pranking a bit this year," he says. "My mum wasn't happy with my report card."

"Bollocks," says James darkly.

"No, seriously," says Peter. "She's right. I somehow haven't managed to learn _a single thing_ in Transfiguration. She reckons I actually know _less_ than this time last year." He shrugs helplessly.

"Then we'll drag you through," says James. "We'll need a lookout. Do you want to go down in history or not?"

Remus looks at James briefly, to find out if it's worth it, or if today is a particularly bossy day. "Actually," he begins, "I reckon Peter's being quite reasonable –"

"Bet you ten Galleons that Peter will bedazzle you with his advanced Transfiguration skills before the year is over," says James. "Isn't that right, Peter?"

"I don't _have_ ten Galleons," Remus points out.

"If James's sense of secrecy doesn't improve, I hardly think that'll matter," says Peter sourly. Which, surprisingly, shuts James up.

"Should I even ask?" says Remus. Peter just shakes his head, and that is the end of that conversation.

Remus tries to settle as he always does on the Hogwarts Express, his cheek against the window pane, watching industrial buildings and outlet stores and the inside of tunnels pass by. With one of his many unnatural senses, he knows James is still watching him intently. "How was your summer, Moony?" James says.

"Same old," he lies. "You?"

Last year, James had treated them all to a long-winded account of his summer, collecting tadpoles in mason jars, illicit late-night Quidditch matches over the lake, dragon spotting in Hungary, and Remus and Peter had been there for some of it, but not Sirius, never Sirius, because Sirius vanishes into the black hole of Grimmauld Place every year. Its gravitational pull allows no light to escape, let alone news, or letters, or Sirius himself, until the summer is over.

"Not same old," says James, and he draws his cloak tighter around him against the unseasonal chill. "Sirius came to stay for a bit."

"What," says Peter.

"They _let_ him?" says Remus.

"Not exactly," says James, and so much for his sense of secrecy. He drags a confused hand through his hair. "Oh bugger," he adds. "I'm going to look for him, he's got to be somewhere on the train."

They're just outside London and the shuffle outside the compartment has finally died down. When James returns, he looks puzzled and betrayed and doesn't say another word.

When they're past Grantham, Peter has enough of moody James and goes looking for Sirius himself, and he returns looking like he was caught in an explosion, cheeks reddened, hair puffed up and robes faintly smoking.

So naturally, when they run out of chocolate around the time the train passes Doncaster, Remus goes looking for Sirius, too.

He finds them in a compartment on the far end of the train. They're hiding in washed-out grey shadows with the lights off, a chilly draft in the air, a bit like Remus imagines Grimmauld Place to be.

Regulus is a slip of a kid at thirteen, curled up on two train seats, almost vanishing under his elaborate travelling cloak. He sleeps like the dead. Sirius's thin hands worry as he threads them through Regulus's hair, and he looks up when Remus peers through the door, a sharp, hyperawake look that dares him to comment. Never an explanation.

Remus makes his way back alone, navigates the aisle as the train judders and shakes, doesn't fall until his seat is in front of him, and then he falls into it with gusto.

"What is _wrong_ with him?" he asks.

"Actually," says James, and swallows, "actually, I've got a bit of a list."

The moon is on the other side of the planet right now, but Remus feels it as sharply as if it were in front of him, waxing, bulging, ready to pop, because as fast as the train goes, the moon is chasing him faster. And all the while he's _still_ feeling the last one, still not quite right after the August full, and he knows that that's how it starts: The damage piles up faster than he can heal.

He listens to James and his bullet point list on why James thinks something is very wrong with Sirius, and he keeps his eyes fixed on the raincloud-heavy sky outside the train window, watching ragged dark shapes streak past behind sheets of rain.

Something is wrong with all of them.

He keeps telling himself that. It almost drowns out the voice inside his head, the one that keeps whispering, _Remember you might die within the day._

Because fate is coming for him. September 2nd, 1974, four thirty-two a.m.

* * *

Something is staring at him, but without eyes. That thought comes first: He's here, again, wherever here is, and something is _aware_ of that. It stares without eyes, but it doesn't see light, and it breathes without lungs, but it doesn't breathe air. If he were to stretch out a hand, what would he even touch?

Remus doesn't regain consciousness so much as he just runs the fuck away from that thing. The darkness drops away all around him, and before he sees anything, hears anything, he feels his bones and his flesh and his skin. Hurt. All over.

Again.

There's touch, too, a light, warm hand on the side of his head, a thumb stroking his hair. It's the touch that reminds him that, in many ways, he's still a child. When he can spare the attention, he realises there's a voice telling him it's time to come back. He cracks open his eyes, and there's light, a golden September morning. It's been more than twenty-four hours and he's probably late for –

"Potions," he croaks.

"Priorities," comes the answer. After thirty or so moons, they don't need many words.

Remus mentally collects his limbs, even if he's temporarily unsure of their shape, or how many he has left, then attempts to prop himself up on his arms. That hand on his head applies just the tiniest bit of pressure.

Poppy Pomfrey's young, round face is absurdly serious when she shakes her head. "Not yet," she says. Then she doesn't say anything for a long while, just looks down on him with that same pitiful expression, and he resents it, resents being here at all. If he has to be a child, then why can't he just be in Potions right now? Melt his cauldron in peace, like a regular kid. Like James and Peter and Sirius.

He stares her down until she says what went wrong this time.

"The wolf," she says eventually, looking away. "Would you say it's growing up?"

For a moment, he considers lying. But she's the one person in this castle he is not supposed to lie to. "Yes," he says.

It's as good an explanation as any for why the past few moons have been so terrible: The wolf is growing up faster than Remus does. At least that's what he's gathered. It's not like anyone can check on him while he's transformed. And not much is known about teenage Werewolves because it's so uncommon for a child to survive the bite. The few there are don't go to Hogwarts. They are not locked up during the moon. They don't try to eat themselves every month.

Maybe he's not meant to be locked up, he thinks, and a long-suffering voice pipes up to inform him that this is a wolf thought. Be that as it may, though, maybe he's meant to roam free, maybe that's how he'll survive.

He breathes out. The alternative isn't freedom, he tells himself. The alternative is death. The Ministry will see to that.

At last, Pomfrey's hand leaves his hair to take his right hand, checking the pulse with her thumb. "Can you move your fingers for me?" she says. "Imagine you're playing a melody. Bach's minuet in G major?"

"Too easy," he says. Also, famously not by Bach, he wants to add.

"Just try."

He chooses the fugue in G minor instead, but Poppy doesn't even notice. When he closes his eyes, he _feels_ his fingers moving, feels his dried-out, cracked skin stretch over each knuckle as he hits imaginary keys. Remembers piano lessons to keep his ever-breaking fingers nimble. Imaginary keys, imaginary music. Imaginary movement.

But he hears it, the fugue imprinted on his brain, and with it comes a memory, as fleeting and unseizable as a dream: Sirius Black playing the broken piano in the Shrieking Shack. A note of discord disturbs that baroque harmony, that odd non-memory.

Sirius has never been to the Shack.

"I think I'm a bit loopy still," he admits.

"Don't let Peeves hear that, it's been two years and he's still hasn't let go of the 'loony'," says Pomfrey. "Does it hurt when I do this?"

He waits for a moment, eyes still closed. "Do what?"

"Never mind," says Pomfrey. "We'll give this another shot later."

Something is probably wrong. Remus feels like he has forgotten something, like there is some elephant in the room, something he needs to acknowledge, or remember, or accept –

Like the truly baroque _pain_ in his right arm, just below the elbow, and when he closes his eyes, something flashes up, like a memory, but brief, and scattered, bloodstains on floorboards –

 _That's my wand arm_ , he thinks, and he wants to point it out, but to what end? Pomfrey already knows. "How was the summer?" she asks.

Again he considers lying. Again he decides against it. "July wasn't good," he tells her. "So I asked Dad to –" oh God, he thinks, he's in for a scolding. "I asked him to chain me up for August, so the wolf wouldn't move so much, but –"

Pomfrey pales at this. "No," she says. "Don't do that."

"Bit out of ideas," he says. "I'm sorry."

"Broke your wrists, did you?" she says gently. "I noticed they were still weak."

He nods. There's no hiding from this woman.

"We're _not_ out of ideas yet," she says. "Can you sit up for me? I've prepared a few potions."

Obediently, he lets her help him into a sitting position and wedge a pillow behind his back and then she hands him, one by one, the various liquids she has lined up on the table.

The first goblet turns out to be water, and it's when he has trouble holding it that it finally occurs to him that he's not, in fact, wearing white pyjamas, it's just that both his arms are bandaged thickly from the knuckles of his hands to over his elbows.

He drains the goblet, then asks, "Do I even want to know?"

Pomfrey gives him a sardonic smile. "Let's keep it a surprise for now," she says, and he has a feeling he's not going to wear short sleeves ever again.

He can discern most of the potions by taste. Blood replenisher. Antiemetic. Analgesic. Skele-Gro (oh god. Again?).

The last one is alarmingly purple. He's sure he's see it before somewhere, maybe in Potions? But trying to remember anything from that class is torture under the best of circumstances. The taste is mild, with hints of blueberries and black tea. "What's that?" he asks.

"Dreamless sleep potion," says Pomfrey.

Remus turns his attention to the window, behind which a golden September beckons. Who knows how long the weather will hold. Forget melting cauldrons, he wants _out_. Anywhere but here, with its smell of medicine and disinfectant and underlying notes of blood and irrational rage.

"How am I supposed to go to class when I'm asleep?" he asks, which is probably not the cleverest of arguments but the best he can come up with right now.

"You're not," says Pomfrey. "You'll need to rest for a little while longer. It'll take effect in a bit."

"I sleep just fine without it," he says, because if there's one thing he wants to keep secret, it's the damn nightmares, where he's running from the giant wolf, through the underwood, over rocks, off the cliffs and into the water. He's fairly sure he knows what those mean.

"You really don't, you know," she says. "Do you need the toilet?"

 _Fuck's sake_ , he thinks, because he does, and realises he's actually said that one out loud. Fortunately, Pomfrey is no stranger to foul language. Sometimes, he hears her mutter when she thinks he's unconscious.

"I'll go," he says.

"Need assistance?"

"God, no," he says.

He gets up slowly, because he knows he will drop like a sack of bricks if he rights himself too quickly. Pomfrey walks him to the bathroom, a steady hand on his shoulder, past the horrible rotting thing standing beside the window. He notices he's taller than Pomfrey now, when the fuck did that happen?

Then, finally, he closes the bathroom door behind him and a wave of nausea washes over him, his stomach cramps up and he retches over the sink, but nothing comes up. The antiemetic is working. Good to know. Remus takes several deep breaths, reminds himself that while everything hurts, at least that means it's still attached, that he can move pretty much everything except his right arm, and that he can bloody well finish the task he came in here for.

Just maybe not standing up.

Meanwhile, a low-level commotion is starting up outside, but he pays it no mind – it's unfortunately a common occurrence in his life. He's sure he can hear James's and Peter's voices, and who the fuck knows where Sirius has gone off to these days.

When he washes his hands at the sink, or tries to, weak fingers worrying the taps until they release a thin stream of lukewarm water, he catches sight of himself in the mirror for the first time. He wishes he hadn't. He doesn't look sick, he looks dead. A still life with skull - ghostly pale, his skin waxen and stiff to move when he furrows his brow, eyes dark as bruises and about as lively as a backwater pond.

 _Remember you might die within the day,_ he thinks. He knows the statistic. All Werewolves die young, more than half of them by their own hand. It's a bullshit statistic: The wolf claims them all, in different ways.

"The patient needs rest, Mr Potter," he hears Pomfrey's annoyed voice through the door. "That's what patients _do_. And I'm sure you're late for class."

"Five minutes?" says James. "We're just bringing chocolate. And homework. I know, I know, it sounds horrible, but he actually asked us to?"

"No, you're attempting to distract the nurse while your friend sneaks through the back door," says Pomfrey conversationally. "This is a hospital wing, not a train station."

(Then why can Remus hear an engine? Of course, it's more likely to be the hammering in his head.)

Someone is knocking on the bathroom door. "You in there?" says Peter's voice on the other side. "What are you doing?"

"Mr Pettigrew! I swear, if you bother him -"

Remus sighs inwardly. "Beating a statistic," he says through the door.

"As long as that's all you're beating," says Peter. "Will you come out? James is having a conniption. He's half convinced you died and they're hushing it up."

"James is such a drama queen," says Remus.

"It's getting worse every day," comes Peter's reply from the other side of the door. "Sirius hasn't been around to ground him, you know."

Remus snorts before returning to the problem at hand. There's several options here, none of which are good. Come out and they'll worry. Hide in here and they'll worry. Let Pomfrey sort it out and they'll never let him hear the end of it.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. He opens the door, but remains leaning against the doorframe, so at least they can't see him shaking in the cold breeze from the window.

"Alive," he says. "Now piss off to Potions, I'll be needing your notes later."

James and Peter are staring at the sight of him, momentarily out of things to say, and Pomfrey exploits this moment to bully them out of her hospital wing. When the door closes behind them, she turns, arms crossed over her chest, and gives Remus a look.

"Is this wise, Mr Lupin?" she says.

He looks at his feet. "They know, Poppy," he says, feeling like a failure for being unable to maintain the ongoing fiction that he successfully kept his secret. It's only the minimum requirement for his staying at school: Keep the secret. But to be fair, he failed that one in second year.

"You told them?" she says.

"Brilliant plan, wasn't it," he says drily. "Accept a Werewolf to Hogwarts. Make him room with a pair of child prodigies. What could possibly go wrong?"

In the corner of his eyes, something catches his attention, something perfectly obvious he's been ignoring. Starkly outlined against the brilliant white walls and the bright morning light, something dark is lurking, something rotten, something barely alive. How could he have missed it? A memento mori if there ever was one.

He blinks, but it's still there, staring him down without eyes.

Pomfrey sighs. "Back to bed, Lupin. I'll talk to them later. Make sure they're taking this seriously."

"But Poppy," he begins, "can't you _see_ there's a –" but his eyelids droop and his speech slurs as she guides him back to the bed.

Before the dreamless sleep claims him, he wonders where Sirius has wandered off to.

* * *

Must be a bad batch of Dreamless Sleep Potion, because surely Remus is dreaming this. Dusk is spilling into the room, bringing shadows and faint glowing outlines, and there's this _thing_ again, this ancient, decaying presence at the wall opposite his bed, staring at him down from shadowy eye sockets, and it moves forward, footsteps like cracking thin ice over a puddle, curtains of black hair, black robes, and his vision swims –

"Sirius?"

"Don't you wish, Lupin." A laugh like an offended crow, a voice like damp seaweed. "You missed Potions again."

Bad batch or not, Remus feels entirely too groggy to be having this conversation, even though it seems rather important to get it right. Where _is_ Pomfrey?

"'S creepy, Severus," he informs Snape. "Following me around. Like a thingy. Stalker. Creep." Turns out he is a lot more honest on this potion.

"Knew you had a secret," says Snape from where he looms at the foot of his bed. "Though I am a bit disappointed it is as mundane at this." He stares down at Remus, and Remus half-heartedly follows his glace.

Both his arms are bandaged tightly from his knuckles to underneath is pyjama sleeves. Oh yeah.

Deflective action seems necessary. "Talked to Lily," Remus croaks. "She reckons it's creepy, too."

Snape doesn't even react to that, a sure sign he thinks he has the upper hand. Unfortunately, he sort of does.

"What is the matter with you, did the prospect of rooming with these imbeciles for another year finally wear you down?" Snape says with a sneer.

"'S not what it looks like, you creepy scarecrow," is what Remus almost replies. It occurs to him that a diversion of these proportions is potentially the only thing that may keep Snape off his tracks for a little while longer. The git is far too observant. He opts for awkward silence.

"If I may offer my expertise?" says Snape. "Nearly every potion in this hospital wing is deadly in large doses." He winks, which looks horrible on him. "If you weren't so hopeless at the subject, you could even work out which one is painless."

"Fuck off, Severus."

He really must be dreaming, Remus thinks, because Snape never fucks off when Remus wants him to. But Snape glides away sideways, and where he was, at the foot of his bed, the dead, rotting thing continues to sway in a non-existent breeze.

This time, Remus stares back.

At least, until the unnatural sleep sucker punches him once more.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	2. Chapter 2

**Note** : Thank you for your lovely comments and all! In this chapter, Remus has an unlikely conversation in an unlikely place, and we learn a bit more about the creepy thing that is following him around. I swear there's a point to everything. Feedback is, as always, very appreciated :)

 **Warnings** : TW implied suicide attempt

* * *

 **Still Life with Skull, part 2/4**

* * *

Okay, he is dreaming, thinks Remus, he is definitely dreaming this time, he somehow blinked asleep and missed everything. Doesn't matter, this is a fugue, a baroque fugue, so everything returns, everything repeats. Imitation, counterpoint, _blink_. Here he goes again.

 _Here_ is the shore of the – aptly named, he thinks - Black Lake, which lies deceptively calm underneath a bright starry sky. The constellations say mid-September, brilliant, that's the new moon, he's all for that. He steps on the pier, walks out as far as it goes, slick wooden planks creaking under his feet. It's the only sound in the silent hour before the birds start to sing.

The creaking and the slickness remind him of floorboards, of blood seeping in the gaps between them, of snapping awake that other time and seeing a mangled arm lying across the room, grey hand and frayed forearm, a good distance from the rest of him. Blood and gritty bits in his mouth, blinking, waiting for the fugue to carry him away. No wonder Pomfrey hadn't told him what was wrong with his arm until she was sure it'd fuse properly.

Now, two weeks later, his right arm is still colder than the left, and barely strong enough to conduct his magic. He switches between hands now, but frankly, both suck, and his grades are suffering for it. Pomfrey says he'll be more flexible later if he keeps switching, but right now his charmwork is nothing short of chaotic and he's actually banned from attempting Transfiguration. Unemployment looks less like a worst-case scenario and more like a certainty now, and if he doesn't pass his O.W.L.s, he might get there much faster than expected, too.

Under the starry moonless sky, the thought stings a little less. At this time of night, nothing much matters. Remus breathes, cool autumn air, chilly on his skin and in his lungs, and at this moment, he feels undeniably alive. New moon, and he can never run further from the wolf than this, right here, balancing on the edge of the pier. New moon, and he feels it behind his eyes, in his tired fingers, his tingling spine, his toes: _Human_.

But.

New moon. An equilibrium, a balance point. He could be tipping one way or the other, but in reality he's only ever tipping forward, towards the next full, towards pain, towards the beast he was and will be again. What is the point of healing his skin if it will just rip apart again, like terrible clockwork? What is the point of fixing his arm this month, if the wolf can just eat it next time he gets the chance? What in the world is the _point_ of chocolate?

No point. Just repetition. Periodicity. Lazy fate and her same old tricks, and Remus Lupin on the pier, somewhere between land and water. Balancing.

"Oh, go on," says a soft voice in the dark. "One step will do. I always wanted to see Thestrals."

Remus can't place that voice right away – it sounds a lot like Sirius, if Sirius ever spoke in a soft voice. That well-bread accent that comes through when he's stressed, posher than the Queen, the silky tone, the slight sneer –

On the other hand, Sirius _probably_ wouldn't goad him to throw himself into a lake filled to the brim with Grindylows and slimly wriggly things and Giant Squids – well, one Giant Squid, but it fills a fair bit of the lake all by itself. That really sounds more like –

"Fuck off, Snape," he says reflexively.

There's a breathy, clipped laugh behind him, and that definitely doesn't sound like Snape at all. "He does inspire profanity, doesn't he?" says the voice.

Remus looks down into the dark waters. There's things moving below the surface, he's almost sure, dark, rotting things all tangled up in robes and algae and bits of driftwood. Or maybe it's a trick of the light. "Drowning," he states, "is a terrible death."

He's fairly sure wolves are excellent swimmers. He wonders if the wolf would save him, even this far from the full.

"So?" says that voice again. "You're a Gryffindor, aren't you?"

Remus turns slowly, careful not to slip on the damp wood, not when he's inches away from the bottomless water full of _things_. He fixes his eyes on the shore and the shadowy Forest. A figure peels away from the darkness, farther away than he'd expected, walking the last metres down the pier. An unseasonably thick cloak is wrapped tightly around him, yet he seems to be freezing. Despite this, his movements are floating, dreamlike, like he weighs nothing underneath the black wool.

"The Hat didn't put me in Gryffindor for my bravery," Remus admits. "It said I'd need my friends to be brave."

"Because you're going to die young?"

Like his brother, Regulus Black is paler than he should be, with the same quiet weariness about him that marks Sirius, too, this shortly after summer. Maybe this is what makes the question sound slightly less impertinent and slightly more _knowing_ than it was probably meant to.

Which, in a way, is worse. In any case, it has Remus frozen for a moment, because, to expand on his previous ruminations, what is the _point_ of keeping secrets if everyone just keeps guessing? He swallows down the awful feeling that maybe this is just where young Regulus Black's mind naturally goes. Best be careful with his words.

"The Hat is not omniscient," says Remus.

He examines his unlikely companion for a reaction. There's no sign of empathy in Regulus's carefully blank expression, but then, there's no sign of malice, either. What there is – and Remus can't pretend it doesn't terrify him – is an eerie sense of camaraderie. No worse, a sense of shared fate. Like they both know where this is going.

Then Regulus snaps out of it. "It was fairly accurate for me," he says. "That hateful, awful hat." His bright eyes glitter. An explanation is not forthcoming.

Had he thought Regulus a child? The thirteen-year-old in front of Remus is almost as tall as he is, and his mouth twists into the smile he knows from Sirius, the one that means he's remembering something he'd rather not.

It occurs to Remus that he probably ought to be worried about this kid, too.

"What are you even doing out here at this time of night?" he says, feeling a bit hypocritical for asking, and a bit awkward in general for caring. Then again, they've probably exchanged more words on this pier than they have in the last two years. He might as well.

Regulus digs around for something in his coat pocket – a number of round, flat, grey things which confuse Remus a lot until he realises they're stones. The kid throws one of them in a flat arc across the water, where it skips – once, twice, three times. At this point, Remus could swear he sees something protruding from the lake's surface, pulling the stone under.

"I'm a Seeker," says Regulus. "I find things."

Which is a reply that, at any other time of day, would be laughably mysterious. Right now, it sort of works for Remus.

"I'm no Quidditch expert," he says, "but don't Seekers spend most of their time _looking_ for things?"

"On the Gryffindor team, maybe." Regulus is squinting at the point his stone vanished from sight. "Lately, all I seem to be finding are the things my brother is losing. His countenance. His marbles. His friends."

"His friends –" starts Remus. "I'm not something Sirius Black lost, for fuck's sake."

"'Is losing'," says Regulus primly. "Not 'lost'. Look, you're standing an inch away from a watery grave full of _things_ in it, on a school night, before dawn. It's a fair assumption. Here, try one."

He hands Remus one of his flat stones. Rather than admitting that his fine motor skills are somewhat impaired at the moment, Remus accepts it, tries bouncing it off the water's surface. It sinks at the first impact.

"The same could be said for you," Remus points out, if only to distract from his failure. It's not like either of them is going to win this particular argument. They have exactly zero reason to be here, apart from the obvious. "If anything," he adds, "I lost him. Where _is_ he, Regulus?"

At this, Regulus shrugs. "I'm not hiding Sirius Black under my cloak," he says.

It's such an odd comment, thinks Remus, and that's before he realises Regulus hasn't said it to him, but to the dark hooded shape that has risen up next to him. Grey, fraying robes, an eyeless stare, a lungless breath, and a sudden winter chill in the brisk autumn night.

"Who are you talking to?" says Remus sharply. So far no-one else but him has been able to see these things. It's not a good moment to find out they're real.

Regulus blinks, and the moment is gone. "You, moron," he says. "I'm talking to you. Who else?"

If Regulus can do it, then Remus supposes he, too, can ignore the rotting thing next to him for a little while longer. "Sirius," he says. "I haven't seen him since that time on the Hogwarts Express, and I'm not even sure that qualifies. _Where is he_?"

By now, Regulus's face has closed off completely. Like he's wilfully draining himself of all emotion, all memories, hell, all _thought_. It's not a good look on a child.

"Hiding," he says eventually. "And he will not show his face until the coast is clear."

" _Hiding_?" says Remus incredulously. "What has he done this time?"

On that face, a smile turns up as if it were painted on a blank canvas, by someone who doesn't know what a smile looks like, and is not very good at painting.

"Nothing," says Regulus. "Here, try another one," he adds, and presses another of his flat stones into Remus's hand. "You want a swift flick of your wrist. Rotate it like _this_."

Even with Regulus's steady hand clasped over his, the movement seems very improbable for Remus to imitate. Nevertheless, he tries. As before, the stone sinks straight to the ground.

"Interesting," says Regulus, and throws another himself. This one gets in four or five good skips before it is snatched up. His tone turns conversational as he says, "You know how my brother sometimes calls Grimmauld Place the Black hole? That's because it can be fairly hard to escape."

But Remus remembers the train ride, remembers James's bullet point list of things that are wrong with Sirius Black. Remembers Sirius and Regulus sharing that compartment at the end of the train, silent and hiding. From what?

"But he tried, didn't he?" says Remus.

Regulus snorts. "So did I," he says. "And we both failed. Well. Kept each other from succeeding. Saved each other, if you're feeling grand. Saved for _what_ , I ask you?"

Remus pauses while his minds, against his conscious will, combines things. Words like escape. Tried. Failed. Saved. And earlier: I always wanted to see Thestrals.

 _Fucking_ hell.

Incidentally, one interesting fact about black holes: You can't see inside. "What happened?" Remus says therefore.

"My brother should have been Seeker," says Regulus. "He finds lost things, too." He steps forward, stands next to Remus on the lake shore, staring down into the dark waters, where nothing is moving.

Remus is still not sure he understood correctly, and feels entirely too out of his depth to ask. Because if he has, it bears at least three questions: One, _why_ would Regulus just admit to something so enormous, when Remus sulks next to large bodies of water late at night and even lies to himself about why he's doing it? Two, _why_ would Regulus admit it to _him_ , someone he barely knows, when Remus tells even his friends he's fine, never better, stop asking?

And three… just _why_ in general?

It occurs to Remus that maybe Regulus Black is caught in a similar fugue state to his own. Jumping between episodes. Forwards, backwards, possibly sideways. At least that would make some sort of poetic sense - explain how they met here, improbably, ridiculously, on the shore of the Black Lake, on a school night in September.

Can he risk it? Probably not. But then, he's been a bit loopy lately.

"I'm a Werewolf and it's killing me," he says.

Regulus's head swivels around. He regards Remus with polite curiosity, but without surprise. Another Astronomy genius, then.

"That's what the Hat meant," adds Remus. "That's why I need my friends to be brave." _That's why I'm going to die young,_ is what he refrains from adding.

He half expects Regulus to say, _All right, then. Jump, I won't stop you_.

The kid is far too well-mannered for that. "The Hat told me," says Regulus, "that where I was going, I'd go alone." He buries his hands in the pockets of his coat. "No better place for that than Slytherin."

 _That hateful, awful hat_ , thinks Remus.

"That's a terrible thing to say to an eleven-year-old," he says out loud.

Regulus laughs. "You bleeding-heart Gryffindor," he says. "Honestly, I've heard worse."

It's a terrible, dark place to venture into during polite conversation, Grimmauld Place, and if this were Sirius, Remus might not even attempt it. With Regulus, it seems safer somehow.

"Yes, your brother mentioned," he attempts. "He's not on great terms with your mother, is he?"

"That's because he has no sense of subtlety," says Regulus. "She turns up the volume and he stops listening altogether. Pragmatics. Implications. Intentions. Easy to manoeuvre even on a bad day. Tell him to give it a try."

Except Regulus evidently hadn't found it easy to manoeuvre at all, or couldn't be bothered. Remus watches as the kid digs out one last flat stone, flicks it across the lake. It skids along the lake's surface as if it were ice, coming to rest somewhere way out of sight.

"You are such a hypocrite, Regulus Black," says Remus.

"Maybe," adds Regulus. "But if I can wait five years, you can bloody well wait one."

And that, now, is just bloody cryptic. James-on-a-train levels of cryptic.

"One year to what?" says Remus.

Regulus shrugs.

"One year to _what_ , Regulus?" says Remus. "What am I supposed to wait for?"

"I don't know. It's just something my brother mentioned," says Regulus. "You should really stop asking."

"All right, I'll bite," says Remus. "You said you can wait five. What's waiting for you in five years?"

"I don't know, do I?" says Regulus, shaking his head with something akin to frustration. "But I have a feeling that, if I knew, I wouldn't bother."

If he thinks that has cleared up anything, he is mistaken. It is, however, enough inappropriate precognition to confirm Remus's suspicions.

"You're asleep, aren't you?" says Remus.

Regulus huffs. "I'm most certainly hoping so," he says. "Would be terrible if Werewolves were allowed in Hogwarts. No offence, Lupin. You can't help your unfortunate name."

Remus clenches a fist, with the arm he saw lying on the other side of a room so very recently. "None taken," he has to admit. Beside him, the creepy dead thing stands swaying.

Regulus turns to leave, his eyes passing over Remus's rotting companion. "Not that Dementors are much better," he adds.

In just a few steps, the darkness swallows Regulus whole, and Remus is left standing there, thinking that, even now it's been named, the thing is quite scary still.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes** : Thank you for sticking with this story! I promise that, by the end of this chapter, things will have become a lot clearer (although I'm saving a bit of the mystery for the last part ^^) As always, your comments and feedback of all kinds are very appreciated! :)

Updated this chapter on 7th March because I found some things annoying.

 **Warnings** : TW discussions of suicide/ self-harm

* * *

 **Still Life with Skull, part 3/4**

* * *

Remus awakes slowly, softly. The air he breathes is no longer frigid, and it smells of disinfectant and peppermint. The slippery pier beneath his feet dissolves into static that rearranges itself, as does the starry night sky, as does the darkness that swallowed up Regulus Black. Gravity seizes him and he tips over gently into the starched linens that coalesce around him just in time, into a dent in the mattress where his coiled-up body fits perfectly. A comforting cocoon. He feels warm and content for the first time since all this began.

Awake. Finally.

But the feeling passes. It always does. Something cool and bright is encroaching on his closed eyelids, and he opens them hesitantly. Outside the large window it's dark, except for the mocking moon – waning, but only just – bathing the hospital room in cold silvery light.

He's also definitely being watched, and not just by his celestial nemesis, either.

"I dreamt of the new moon," he informs the room in general. "Before you came and woke me."

His sensitive ears pick up a rustle of cloth that might be a shrug in the dark. He half expects a cold rotting thing sitting by his bedside, grey fraying robes and a mouth and a bottomless hunger. But of course it's not there. It's not anywhere in the room. He breathes out in relief: The dream is definitely over now.

On the second sweep, his eyes settle on the person next to him. Sirius Black is perched on a chair, watching him intently.

"If I were Snape," he says, "you'd just have given me a huge bloody clue." Despite the late hour, he looks wide-eyed, wide-awake. "You've got to be more careful, Moony."

Given the sheer hypocrisy of that statement, Remus neglects to tell him that Snape has, in fact, visited (or did he dream that, too?), and decides to deflect.

"You," says Remus. "Where've you been?" He hasn't seen Sirius since the train ride, three days ago. Obviously, Remus has been a bit preoccupied, but three days is still a fairly long time to pass in Hogwarts without catching a glimpse of Sirius Black. He just has a tendency to pop up.

Sirius shrugs again. "Around."

His bright eyes dart across the room. They flicker over the wholesome clutter - the row of potion bottles on the nightstand, the untouched mountain of chocolate and the equally untouched mountain of homework left by James and Peter – and linger on the thick bandages on Remus's arms. Perhaps a tad oversensitive, Remus feels scrutinised, and more than a little bit judged. He probably still looks like a literal corpse, too, and the pale moonlight can't be helping. Sirius, however, seems decidedly less distressed than James and Peter the other day. Maybe they warned him.

"Well, you know how I feel about visitors," says Remus. "Especially at –" he makes a dramatic movement to check the time on the wristwatch lying on the nightstand, "half four in the morning. Oh _god_."

Something seems very improbable about the time, but it's not something he feels capable of figuring out right now.

"I'm not here for you," says Sirius, continuing to stare as if he's never lain in a hospital bed before.

"You're only sitting at my bedside, watching me sleep," Remus points out. "Apologies for jumping to conclusions."

"Apology accepted." Finally, Sirius cracks a grin. "If anyone asks, you haven't seen me," he says, and jumps off the chair with far more energy than Remus could ever muster at this time of night.

Remus can't help but watch Sirius as he goes noiselessly through drawer after drawer of Pomfrey's medicine cabinet. It's not his fault. Even now, two months shy of fifteen, Sirius is graceful, and in a castle overwhelmingly filled with teenagers and elderly teachers, that's not a particularly common sight. Everyone thinks Sirius is tall, but he's not: He just moves like he should be.

It's a bit unfair. Their peers are fully in the throes of their awkward teenage years, all knees and elbows, pointy Adam's apples and flimsy moustaches. Unless he's on a broom, gangly James moves with all the grace of a new-born deer, while Peter is still waiting for his baby fat to somehow spirit itself away. Sirius, on the other hand, just gently transitions away from the slight pale child he's been. Every day he's a new page in a flip-book. He doesn't grow so much as he unfolds, sharpens, like someone's filling in a blurry pencil sketch, erasing softness, bringing out the edges.

Of course, the sharpening could have something to with the weight he reliably loses over the summer.

This same summer, Remus himself had to buy an entire second-hand set of robes, with money his parents didn't exactly have. He's swimming in them, tripping over the edges, but at least these don't stretch dangerously over his shoulders, and they don't reveal several inches of wrists and ankles even when he's standing still. He feels safe in them, hidden, a bit like he's a kid playing dress-up with his father's clothes. And if he can fool himself that he's not growing up, maybe he can fool the wolf, too.

But lose the robes and things get harder to ignore. His muscles are growing denser somehow, coiling and visible under his skin, his sweat has turned sticky and odd. Worst of all is the hair, a shade darker than the hair on his head, incongruous and alien when it creeps up on his arms and legs and face, a slow excruciating transformation with no moonset to save him. One day he will stare in the mirror and see Fenrir Greyback leering back at him, a man who is regrettably as much part of his lineage as his own father. And what then?

He wonders if someone sailing through puberty as carelessly as Sirius will ever understand.

Speaking of whom.

It may be the late hour, but his tired, musing, _watching_ brain is finally catching up with the fact that his friend appears to be once again engaged in another bout of juvenile delinquency. Sirius is pulling out bottle after bottle of this and that, reading their labels, licking a tiny taste off his fingers, no care in the world.

Well, Remus thinks. Holidays are definitely over. Time to be a spoilsport again. "What are you doing?" he says.

He has a veritable collection of every offended look Sirius Black has ever given him. This is one of the better ones.

"They'll make you Prefect next year if you keep this up," says Sirius, before crouching down to open the bottom drawers.

"They'll have to pick one of us four, it's a fairly safe bet," Remus reminds him. "Anything in particular you're looking for?"

He sees Sirius's shoulders tense and his rifling fingers slow down, and somehow knows the answer before he hears it. "Dreamless sleep potion," Sirius says eventually.

For some reason, Remus is inappropriately disappointed. "A hundred mind-altering potions in here and you go for the class C restricted substance?" he says. "That's barely a step above butterbeer."

In spite of his mockery, Remus is confused. It's not that Sirius Black isn't prone to nightmares – usually, the two or three weeks after the holidays are especially bad, there's barely a night when Remus _doesn't_ awake to the sound of Sirius fidgeting, or pacing, or opening windows to sit in the frigid cold, staring defiantly at the night sky, shooting the occasional hex at distant namesakes of his family. What's so unusual is Sirius admitting that the nightmares bother him, and moreover, seeking a solution, and moreover, seeking a solution that may even be considered half-way related to the original problem. At least by his debatable standards.

"If I want my mind altered, I can just inhale Snape's potion fumes for a couple of hours," says Sirius. "Oh, wait, I'm already doing that twice a week. My point is -"

"It's not for you, is it?" says Remus. "The Dreamless Sleep Potion."

Sirius's turns, his bright eyes widening slightly. "Are you trying to be clever, wolfie?" he says carefully.

Remus shrugs. "You wear your nightmares like they're war wounds."

"They are," says Sirius. "So?"

Remus holds a short inner debate with himself whether to get into the topic of half-forgotten dreams, of remembering things that haven't happened yet, of Regulus skipping stones on the Black Lake in two weeks' time. He decides it's probably not worth the headache.

"Just a feeling," he says. Then he sighs and gives up. "The dark blue bottle. On the table. Don't take too much or I'll get questions."

To Remus's surprise and Sirius's credit, Sirius hesitates. "That's yours, isn't it?"

"Help yourself," says Remus. "I don't like it, it makes me loopy."

Sirius regards him sceptically, but retrieves a smaller glass bottle from inside his robes. "What sort of loopy?" he asks, a concentrated look on his face as he wordlessly siphons two doses of the Dreamless Sleep Potion into it, using small, precise movements of his wand. He doesn't spill a drop.

 _The sort of loopy_ , thinks Remus, _where I dream-jump between time points and imagine creepy rotting things lurking in the corners of rooms_ , and decides not to answer that question. He has one of his own, one that he can probably answer himself, but he wants to know if Sirius is going to humour him.

"It's for Regulus, isn't it?" he says.

Because he may just have woken from a class C restricted substance-induced sleep that, in certain aspects, may have been more prophetic than he strictly cares for, but he's not a complete idiot, either. Sirius shares absolutely everything with his friends, every secret, every embarrassing truth about himself. With one giant exception in the form of his little brother. But Remus doesn't need prophetic nightmares to figure this one out. The train ride three days ago was evidence enough.

Sirius turns slowly, regarding him carefully. It's as good as a confession. In fact, he's probably musing how to make the witness disappear.

"My brother is soft," Sirius says finally. "Slytherin is no place for people who are soft."

"Why isn't he stealing it himself, then?"

"The difference between us is, I don't give a _fuck_ if I get caught. What sort of loopy?"

Profanity still sounds odd, coming from him. They've been trying it on for size, James and Sirius, both of whom come from money. James, with his elderly parents, had had a veritably virginal vocabulary when he got here. Sirius had come armed with a variety of insults ranging from innocent to breathtakingly offensive, but had probably lived in constant danger of having his mouth washed out with a _Scourgify_ if he used actual profanity. All in all, first year was an innocent affair. Sometimes Remus regrets teaching them.

"Just loopy," Remus informs him.

Sirius gives him a look every bit as frustrated as that answer probably deserves. "Well, that's me sorted out, then," he says. "I'll leave you to your beauty sleep then, shall I?"

He snatches up his wand and crosses the room, is two steps from the door when Remus says, "No."

Sirius stops in his tracks. "Why?"

Remus realises he doesn't exactly have an answer for that. He makes a gesture with his good hand – well, his slightly better hand – to illustrate the things he doesn't want to be alone with: The splotches of silvery moonlight all over his bed, the space next to the window that until recently contained a creepy dead thing, his lingering dreams, the bloody Werewolf death statistics.

"Because misery loves company," he says, when the gesture doesn't seem to do the trick. "Come on, I haven't seen you in so long. Be a friend."

Sirius just looks at him, as if he understands, but also as if the thought of protecting more than one person at a time is overwhelming. It probably is. He's still transitioning between summer and school year. Remus is sure Sirius will soon ignore Regulus again and Regulus, in turn, will somehow function on his own, fade into the Slytherin background. But not yet.

Then again, Sirius has never said no to a challenge, either. He returns to the chair by Remus's bedside.

"So, Lupin, old chap," he says cheerfully. "Did you have a good summer?" and it's so fucking posh-boy public school speech Remus can't help but grimace.

"Oh, same old, same old," he says, trying to emulate that fucking RP accent and probably failing ridiculously. "We summered at a campsite in Devon, my Auntie Beth got married to a gentleman from the Midlands, and I turned into a vicious monster twice. Other than that, fairly uneventful."

Sirius shakes his head, distracting himself from one misery by jumping right into another.

"More vicious than it used to be, is it?" he says. The scrutinising stare is back, Remus notes.

Remus shrugs lying down, which turns it into a bit of an undignified twitch. "It's to be expected," he says, trying hard to sound casual. "Poppy says the wolf is growing up. Getting meaner."

"Bullshit," says Sirius. "Growing up doesn't make you mean. Being a despicable excuse for a human being does."

So Sirius is probably not the best listener in the world.

"That doesn't make any fucking sense, Sirius," Remus tells him. "It's a magical wolf. And speaking of vicious grown-up monsters -"

Sirius, inappropriately, laughs. "If you're asking how my summer went –"

"Let it be known for posterity that you said that, not me," says Remus.

"Oh, it was perfectly chaotic," says Sirius. "You should have been there. Except they'd have eaten you."

Remus ponders the logistics. "Nah," he says. "I might have eaten them."

"Believe me, it would have improved things a lot," Sirius says. "But, you know. Summer was fun. Gave as good as I got."

Remus pauses at this. The answer is probably obvious, but he still needs to ask. "Has it occurred to you not to poke the hornet's nest?" he inquires politely.

Sirius smirks down on him. "Surprisingly enough, _yes_ ," he says. "Turns out hornets don't care who pokes their nest."

"Oh, god," says Remus. "Surely not –"

"I went home with the best of intentions," says Sirius, channelling all the innocence he finds in himself, which is a rather surprising amount, considering.

"The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black experienced unheard harmony for two whole hours," he continues, and starts counting on his fingers: "Mother ranted against Muggleborns. We nodded. Father tested us on Dark Potions. We excelled. Mother had us recite the family tree. We got it perfectly, down to the last bloody step cousin thrice removed. Father cursed the pudding. We polished it off without losing a single finger."

"Dear fucking god," says Remus. "Is that what passes for a quiet family night at Grimmauld Place?"

"Is it any wonder I turned out such a delight?" says Sirius with fake modesty. "Anyhow, over the cheese tray, Reggie just drops the fact he hasn't signed up to take Divination this year. What an amateur, right?"

"Right?" guesses Remus.

Apparently, it's the correct response. "Sometimes I can't believe that kid is related to me," says Sirius. "It's been a year and they're still blissfully unaware I'm taking Muggle Studies."

The problem is, by and large, still fairly unclear to Remus. "All right," he says. "I can sort of see why your parents would have a conniption over Muggle Studies, but Divination is _objectively_ ridiculous."

" _My parents_ are objectively ridiculous," says Sirius. "They're so – you know. Magic conquers all, even time. Future is our bitch and birth right, the laws of causality bend to our superior minds. I swear, foretelling my untimely demise is my mother's favourite hobby."

"It's also an easy O," says Remus. "Why didn't he take it?"

Sirius shrugs. "Future gives him the creeps and he wants nothing to do with it?" he says. "No idea what goes on in that silly little head sometimes."

It sounds utterly dismissive. But Remus recollects, with chilling clarity, something Regulus hasn't said, on a night that hasn't happened yet, in a dream that's mostly faded: _If I can wait five years, you can bloody well wait one_.

Wait for _what_?

Unaware of Remus's utter confusion, Sirius trudges on. "So, Mother yelled," he says. "Told him he was going to take Divination or _else_ \- but for some reason, Reggie decided this was the hill he was going to die on. Didn't budge. Then she yelled at _me,_ saying I shouldn't have complained about the bloody class so much. I yelled back –"

"- Surprisingly."

"So she grounded us both. Then she wrote owls to the school governors to make Divination mandatory, because she really, truly, is as ridiculous as that. That was day one. Seventy-three days to go."

With new-found fondness, Remus recalls his first night of summer, back home at his parents' cottage in Wales. Shepherd's Pie and Scrabble afterwards. To think he'd thought it boring!

"By day three," Sirius continues, "Reggie still hadn't given in, and I was starting to go a little bit insane with the lack of attention and, well, just general lack of anything happening at all, so I let her catch me smoking."

Of course, why not, thinks Remus blankly. "You smoke?" he says.

"Started specially for Mother," says Sirius, with something that is, unmistakeably, pride. "Thought I was taking one for the team, but it's surprisingly fun. Reminds me, do you mind?"

Remus groans. So get this: The Sorting Hat put him into Gryffindor because he would need his friends to be brave. Had the Hat ever considered he might need his friends to not be _complete fucking idiots_? And of course, Sirius takes his groan as consent, because he jumps up, opens the window wide, and settles down on the window-sill before, yep, lighting a fag.

In the hospital wing.

Remus is so going to tell on him.

Rolling his eyes as hard as he can – at Sirius, but also at himself for being such a god-damn pushover -, Remus tugs the sheets tighter around him against the sudden chill. Outside, he hears birds singing. Can't be too far from sunrise now.

Then a thought occurs to him. "Cigarettes are Muggle," he says. "How'd you get them? Being grounded, and all?"

Behind the glow and the smoke, Sirius smiles brightly. "Can we just say my summer was a perfect storm and leave it at that?"

"I think that bit is self-evident," says Remus. "How about you tell me the rest of the story, and I won't throw you out. I'm delicate, you know." He gives a dainty little cough to underline the point.

In return, Sirius gives him another maddening shrug, looking disgustingly relaxed as he all but melts against the window frame.

"So smoking upped the stakes a little bit," he says, apparently deciding to indulge Remus a little. "Next thing you know, my idiot brother is feeling guilty, like that ever achieved anything, but it's his sanity, right? So he goes hiding all the shoes in the house – nice bit of magic, getting them to stick to the ceilings, no-one ever thought to look there – anyway, Mother misses the damn school governor meeting because she can't find her dragonhide stilettos, blames me, and so on and so forth."

"And then?" probes Remus, even though he probably shouldn't.

"So I thought, if I'm going to be blamed for everything anyway, I might as well start having fun," says Sirius, and smiles widely.

"Oh, god." Remus starts getting the impression he's repeating himself.

"Remember, I was still grounded inside our freezing London townhouse," says Sirius, "where the most interesting thing to happen is the Daily Prophet's crossword, while you gained – " he squints at Remus – " a seemingly outrageous number of new freckles, in _Devon_ , of all places, James broke the same arm twice practising on his new Quidditch broom, and Peter came back from Sicily with at least three tans on top of each other – so yeah, I was bored out of my fucking skull."

"So you instigated a prank war," says Remus.

"Yeah."

"At Grimmauld Place."

"Yeah."

Remus can't believe his ears. " _Again_?"

"I know, right?" says Sirius. "My parents really should know better now. You know what else mortally offends them, besides Muggle Studies, loose shirt-tails, the state of my hair, my brother disagreeing with them on anything, my brother agreeing with _me_ on anything, mentions of my disowned cousin, mentions of my Sorting, and smoking?"

"Seems like quite the exhaustive list, to be honest," says Remus. "What else could there be?"

"It's a good thing I was annoying them on purpose, because painting my nails sure did the job," says Sirius. "I thought I heard all of my mother's insults, but this was," the tip of his cigarette lights up as he takes a deep drag, " _this_ was truly something else. After that, Reggie got the Wireless to pick up only Celestina Warbeck Christmas specials and they couldn't turn it back for two weeks."

"Oh god," says Remus. "Oh _god_. You idiot. Idiots. Are you proud of recruiting your brother?"

"There may be hope for him yet," says Sirius. "Told you. Fun summer." He sits quietly for a moment, looking pensive – for Sirius, anyway – and, oddly, not entirely dissatisfied with the state of the world.

Oh, he has _got_ to be faking it. "Then what made you run away?" Remus asks.

There's a long pause after he's said that. "Fucking James," says Sirius finally. "Told you, didn't he?"

"What?" says Remus. "Did you expect your friends not to talk to each other?"

In stark contrast to his previous state of utter relaxation, Sirius now drags a distracted hand through his hair. "I hardly ran away at all," he says. "I just needed a break. I needed to see a friendly face. I needed to see some god-damned sunlight. I needed to not have to put on bloody dress robes for bloody supper. That's what summers are there for, aren't they?"

"What happened?" says Remus. "Why did you run?"

Sirius peers at him from under that curtain of hair. "What makes you think anything happened?" he says.

"You ran away from home," Remus points out. "You returned to Grimmauld Place two days later for reasons unknown. You're not sleeping in your own bed for the second night in a row, and you're stealing Dreamless Sleep Potion for your thirteen year old brother. Even by your standards, that's a bit…" he pauses, thinks, then finally settles on, "intense."

His friend curses softly around the cigarette in his mouth. "Well, you're the one lying broken in a hospital bed," Sirius says, in a laughably obvious attempt to deflect, "so disregarding all the… intensity in my life, I'd say your monsters are the more pressing issue."

"The wolf chewed off my arm this time," Remus informs him.

Sirius's face goes blank. "The wolf – _what_." His eyes flicker towards Remus's arm. "It looks quite attached," he says, as if trying to convince himself. "…Right?"

"Poppy thinks I haven't noticed," says Remus. "There, that's it. That's what the wolf is doing to me. What are your monsters doing to _you_?"

"Nothing," says Sirius brightly, though he still can't quite take his eyes off Remus's arm. "They're in London, and we're here."

"Yes," says Remus, "and the full moon was two nights ago, and look, here I still am. Broken in a hospital bed with my arm half off and half on. Try again."

Sirius regards him with an expression that makes it quite clear to Remus that he really, truly doesn't want to know. Because this is the kind of knowledge that demands action, and he's not sure he, or anyone, can do anything about this.

Then, unexpectedly, something in that expression closes off. Sirius leans forward, catches Remus's right hand in his own. "Let me see," he says, cigarette end dangling from his lips, nimble fingers tugging at the bandages, and Remus is so surprised that almost an inch of raw, chewed-up skin is exposed before he can jerk his arm away.

"What the _fuck_ , Sirius?" he hisses. The dull ache in his arms has reawakened to a sharp throbbing pain, concentrated on the point where the bones of his arms have given in to the wolf's gnawing and tearing.

"Don't like prying?" says Sirius. "Would never have guessed." He leans back as if he has proved a point.

"It's not the same bloody thing," says Remus. "It's –"

But he doesn't have words for this, and evidently, neither has Sirius. What he has, what he always has, are rationalisations. "Told you," he says. "We were little shits all summer. They showed remarkable restraint, really."

"Until they didn't?" says Remus.

Sirius's voice is impatient now. "Drop it, Lupin. Besides, we both know you've got bigger issues than I do, so let's talk about those, shall we."

"We both know – what," says Remus.

A true Gryffindor, Sirius much prefers offence to defence. "You realise your friends talk about you, too?" he says. "You were _crying on the Hogwarts Express_."

Oh, god. "I had a nightmare," says Remus. "It happens."

"I have it on good authority there were tears, Lupin."

Remus's breath catches at the betrayal. " _Fucking_ James," he says.

"And only this morning, apparently," continues Sirius, "you were _beating a statistic_ in the hospital bathroom."

"…Fucking Peter," says Remus. "I didn't think he'd get it, to be honest."

"He didn't, I did." says Sirius. "Would that be the statistic we discussed before the summer? The one about Werewolf mortality? Half of them suicides?"

"The other half is natural causes," Remus points out.

"I know that," says Sirius. "Which one were you beating?"

 _Fucking hell, you condescending arsehole_ , thinks Remus, but for some reason, his treacherous body won't allow him to say it out loud. Instead, he takes a shallow breath, and then another.

"Because I swear, if you off yourself before you're fifteen, I will not come to your funeral," says Sirius, and his voice is merciless.

"This is not about you," says Remus, when he finally finds his voice again. "And it is not about death. And it is – it is not about funerals, for fuck's sake."

But Sirius's anger seems to dissipate as quickly as it has come over him. He grinds the pitiful cigarette end down to ash on the window-sill.

"You know," he says, a lot more thoughtfully, "you're the second person to say that to me. And I still don't get it. What _is_ it about, if not death?"

This time, Remus pauses for a very long moment. "Pain," he says eventually. "Futility." Another long pause. "Hiding?"

"I know all three. So?"

This is what Remus would reply if he thought pitching this sort of thing to someone as impulsive and troubled as Sirius were in any way a good idea: He doesn't want to die. He wants this to _go the fuck away_. The pain. The potions every month, the bandages, the tinctures and salves. He wants to forget what Dittany smells like. He wants to play Quidditch. He wants the scars gone. He wants to live without hiding what he is, live without fear his friends might slip up. He never wants to see the inside of the hospital wing again, or wake up to find his arm lying grey and frayed on the other side of the room. He wants Severus Snape to stop stalking him. Most of all, he doesn't want to get mauled by an angry wolf every fucking month. Is that too much to ask?

Instead he says, "You're a dick, Sirius Black."

Even if Remus is far from provoked enough to say it out loud, he catches himself thinking a number of very uncharitable thoughts. Namely, just because Sirius periodically, deliberately, and enthusiastically provokes one or both of his parents into a painful, narcissistic meltdown, does not mean he knows pain the way Remus does, as a recurring, deadly inevitability.

Then again, maybe Sirius does. Remus is not privy to what goes on inside that head, inside that house. Maybe it _is_ inevitable.

"Maybe," says Sirius.

Actually, since he's pondering this now, Remus concedes he wouldn't – shouldn't - know a thing about the pain Sirius Black knows. It's not like Sirius hides it – not like Remus did, the first year, long jumpers with sleeves that went to his knuckles, hair he'd let grow until it covered some of the scars on his face, mysterious illnesses he caught halfway between two moons, just to get the Astronomy whizzes with their lunar charts off the track, books large enough to hide behind, late nights and early mornings so no-one could watch him sleeping.

That's just the thing: Sirius _doesn't_ hide, per se, and maybe that's why he got away with it longer – he starts too many fights for bruises or scratches or scars to mean anything anymore, and he's subjected his friends to so many of his volatile moods that when he does go hiding inside himself for a while, they think he's got better. And he sure as hell complains about his parents often enough, every petty little argument, every perceived slight, so that, when something big comes along, it goes down smoothly with the rest. Like a large, unpleasant pill he swallows. Maybe that is why he riles them up on purpose.

Be that as it may, this is where Sirius hides things: Out in the open. And once again Remus has nearly fallen for it, because if there were anything to hide, surely Sirius would do a better job hiding it, right? And thus, as an implication finally catches up with him, Remus rolls over with some effort to look at his friend. If he's the _second_ person...

In the dim light of the early morning, Sirius's face is unreadable.

"Your brother tried it, didn't he?" Remus says. "This summer?"

"Tried what?"

Remus pauses. "You know what," he says.

"I'm sorry, is this making you uncomfortable?" says Sirius, and only the white knuckles on his clenched hands give him away. "If you can't even say it, maybe it's not for you."

"Did he try taking his own life?" says Remus, and to his own surprise, it comes out so loud they both startle, stopping to listen if Madam Pomfrey is stirring in her chambers.

He's wondering why, of all the expressions, he chose this one: Neutral words, useful words, terrible just when brought into sequence. Life, he thinks. Own. Take. Who is he kidding here?

"I have literally no fucking idea," Sirius's voice cuts through his thoughts, "because, I swear to God, that boy is bloody careless with knives."

" _Fucking hell_ ," says Remus, and that's really all the commentary he has right now. It isn't even compassion. It is horror. Dreams and skipping stones and conversations that haven't happened yet, and bloody hell, _what is happening to him_?

And he can't help thinking that, even if Sirius is a master at hiding things out in the open, his brother has bested him: Because Regulus laid it all out, and yet Sirius is doubting it.

"You asked," says Sirius. A long minute passes, but neither of them talks: Remus, because he has resolved that he is quite happy not knowing the details, and Sirius, because he is unlikely to offer them anyway.

"Anyway," says Sirius eventually, just as the first ray of sunlight creeps over the hills. "Must be off, I need to catch Regulus before his Divination lesson."

 _Then what was all this about?_ thinks Remus. "…He gave in, huh?" he says.

"Of course he did," says Sirius. "He chose that hill to die on. He died on it. Welcome to Grimmauld Place."

He climbs off the window-sill, looming, for a moment, over the bed. "You hang in there, Moony, will you?" he says, with far more kindness than before. "Because we're planning something cool. A grand old, Marauder-style surprise."

"Oh, _god_ ," groans Remus, not for the first time tonight.

"A really good one," says Sirius. "James reckons it might help with all – this." He waves an impatient hand at whatever _this_ is – potions, the hospital wing, the bandages, Remus himself. "Come to think of it," Sirius adds, "he reckons I shouldn't be talking about it. Anyway, it'll take a while yet."

"How long?"

"About a year?" says Sirius. "We should have it ready by the end of summer. It'll be the best thing ever. Just you wait."

Honestly, Remus isn't even surprised any more. No wonder Regulus hates Divination.

"What is it?" says Remus weakly. "What is it that I'm supposed to wait for?"

Or better, he doesn't add, what is it Sirius is willing to wait for? Honestly, this is just so decidedly un-Sirius: Because the vast majority of his actions can really only be explained under the assumption that he truly doesn't give a fuck about anything apart from the immediate, flimsy present. A year from now, for him, might as well be the afterlife.

"Don't make me say it, it's not safe," says Sirius, who, of course, chooses this very moment to be cautious. He rights himself, starts making his way to the door. "Don't tell anyone, either. I'll catch you later, Moony."

"Catch you later, Padfoot," says Remus without thinking.

Sirius freezes.

Remus wants to ask what's wrong, but there's a part of him – a tired, middle-aged, ill-fitting part – that knows _exactly_ how he just fucked up, that knows exactly where that nickname came from and why it isn't safe. He wants to apologise, wants to take it back, wants to make it so it hasn't happened, but Sirius just raises a finger to his lips.

There is a sound in the air. A sound that falling snow might make, or a lake freezing over. A chilly wind comes in from the window that Sirius left open. Remus looks to his left, and sure enough, there's a thin sheet of ice on his glass of water.

Then he looks up.

There's a hand on the window-sill. A greying, frayed hand, half hidden in a threadbare sleeve, and with it comes the entire dead, rotting thing, a human-shaped hole in the world, not so much climbing inside, but folding itself over and over until it's perched on the window-sill, oozing cold and sadness and _attention_.

"Sirius," says Remus quietly. The thing is drawing a rattling breath.

"Relax," says Sirius. "It's not looking for you."

"How can you possibly know that?"

"Because," says Sirius, like he's explaining a particularly gnarly Arithmancy problem, "because it's looking for me." He pauses, then adds, as if that's an explanation, "I've been hiding, but – you know." Despite his calm words, his apologetic smile, he's still frozen to the spot, caught up in the inertia emanated by the Dementor, like he's impaled by invisible pincers.

"Then run, Sirius," says Remus. "Run the fuck away. It's your best thing, isn't it?"

"Maybe," says Sirius, still inexplicably, incomprehensively calm. "But I guess we always knew I'd choose the darkness in the end." He turns to face the Dementor fully, as if daring it to come at him.

The thing doesn't need to be asked twice.

Keeping to the dim shadows of the hospital wing, it unfolds and grows and expands, until it looms, thin and tall and twisted, over Sirius, who is a child in so many ways, and it draws back its hood and –

Unable to move, unable to do anything except watch helplessly, Remus can only shout. "Run, Sirius, for fuck´s sake!"

"Another time," says Sirius, but already he sounds far away, like someone Remus doesn't even know. "You hang in there, Moony, I'll need you to -"

And then his voice dies away. Because the thing opens its mouth - a pit, a sink, a black hole - revealing rows and rows and rows of grey sharp teeth and a scaly tongue like a bloated, dead eel, and it opens and opens until that nightmare face turns inside out.

And it descends.

And it consumes.

* * *

" _I suppose he is asleep_?" says a voice Remus can't immediately place. " _I mean, he hasn't died, has he_?"*

When he opens his eyes, he's back on the train and none of this has happened – _yet_ , he thinks, it hasn't happened yet. Three pair of eyes stare down him, one watery blue, one hazel, one bright grey.

Uh-oh.

"You," he croaks, "shouldn't you be at the end of the train? With your brother?" He tries very hard to forget the image of Sirius being eaten by a Dementor. It's not one of his more successful endeavours.

"What in blazes are you talking about?" says Sirius, who shows no outward sign of being chewed up, swallowed down, or in any way digested. To be fair, he does show plenty of outward signs of being annoyed at the very question. Or not annoyed. Caught out. And Remus remembers thinking – in a dream, in a future that hasn't happened yet – that Sirius can only protect one person at a time.

Maybe this time around, he has picked someone else.

Remus blinks, once, twice, three times, His face appears to be wet. "Nothing, apparently," he says. "Weird dream."

"Are you –" begins Peter, as always too inquisitive for his own good.

"No." Remus muses whether he needs to go into his usual mantra of _Fine, never_ _better_ , before they've even reached Hogwarts, but looking at his friends' faces, the message seems to have sunk in from all the previous repetitions over the years, and now, _no_ is all it takes.

He surreptitiously wipes his treacherous face with his sleeve, and at least his arm is fully attached this time, that's a definite plus, even if the full moon is still looming in front of him, less than a day away. Looking around the compartment, he notes exactly zero creepy rotten things lurking in the corners. Also good. He feels his tense shoulders relax a little, allowing him to rest back into his seat. Still, he rejects the idea of catching a few more minutes of sleep, and instead settles for idly watching the Scottish landscape pass by.

"Nearly there," says James. He looks nervous, and his voice is oddly distant. "Only a couple minutes now."

But Remus's eyes are locked on the window, and he remembers: Ragged dark shapes streaking past behind sheets of rain. A lifetime ago, before he fell asleep. He can't see a thing now.

Because the window is frozen over.

"Bloody hell, not again," he groans. But at least he won't have to face the Dementor by himself. Reaching for his wand, he turns back towards his friends.

Gone.

Gone.

Gone.

The train stops to a halt, and with it goes the sound of the engine, the constant background hum that had lulled him to sleep. The next thing to go is the lights, it's pitch-black, and in the ensuing onslaught of voices, stumbling children, the chilling presence of a single Dementor right here on the train, Remus remembers:

James, lying dead among the ruins of his cottage in Godric's Hollow, a few metres and barely a minute away from his wife. Peter's name etched on a tomb slab in rural Yorkshire, and underneath it, nothing but a buried finger. And the most recent memory: Sirius's face, waxen and crazy and ruined, on the Muggle evening news.

And he thinks and he thinks and he thinks: _What_ does the Dementor want from him? _Why_ did it dredge up Fourth Year, when he's had so much worse? _What_ is it looking for?

It's a magnificent puzzle. And that's why he deliberately _stops_ thinking, because, occasionally, being a Gryffindor means recognising when a puzzle needs to be saved for later.

Professor R.J. Lupin rises from his seat, wand in his hand. Magic is flowing through his arm, past the almost imperceptible hitch where the wolf tore it off all those years ago. With considerable effort, he pulls up every recent bit of happiness he can find, until the Patronus is crackling at his fingertips, that hidden, jealous wolf. Ready to protect those he still can.

"Quiet!"** he commands.

As always, they listen.

* * *

Dialogue quoted from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Bloomsbury edition, *p. 63., **p. 65.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes** : Hello again, beautiful readers! Apology #1: Sorry for the delay. I thought I had enough left for like a two-thousand words coda. …. Yeah, that didn't happen. That didn't happen so hard. Apology #2: This is only chapter 4a (yep, did it again, so sorry). This is by far the wordier bit. After that the story will be concluded with chapter 4b, which I PROMISE will be posted on Sunday.

Thank you very very much for your comments and everything. I'm looking forward to reading what you think! (Really, I do. Especially this time. I tried my darndest to wrap up this impossible thing, and most of the wrapping up is in this here chapter, so tell me if you find it convincing – or not! Chapter 4b, on the other hand, will be mainly about what a badass Remus Lupin is.)

 **Warnings:** mentions of suicide. And creepy mind magic.

* * *

 **Still Life with Skull, part 4a/4**

* * *

For the past twenty minutes, Remus has been telling himself he's just taking a detour. Delaying the inevitable, rather than avoiding it altogether. It's a tough sell - as much as the Map is still rotting in Filch's office, it's inside of him, too, and so he can't quite delude himself into thinking he's merely taking the long way round to Dumbledore's office. Plus, the wine bottle he's carrying is rather giving it away. Much as he respects Albus Dumbledore, experience has taught him that this respect is best paired with a nice chilled glass of sobriety.

Remus'd watched the old man during the Welcome Feast and wondered when, exactly, he'd missed that critical moment – the last moment he could have possibly divulged that mildly relevant piece of information he'd been procrastinating on for the last twelve years. Probably a month ago, he decides. After the breakout.

Granted, _before_ the breakout would probably have been even better, but then, you'd expect the most secure prison this side of the late Iron Curtain to be able to hold on to a single mass-murderer, so it's probably not all on him.

Be that as it may, he should definitely turn around, knock on Albus's door, and swallow down that old, childish jealousy that tells him it's _his_ secret, the last sad scrap he has of his friends, the one thing that really, truly, only belongs to him. It'll be the shortest Defence tenure in recorded history, even by that position's lousy standards, and it'll just prove that after twelve years he _still_ can't catch a break, but _who cares._ Best foot forward, Gryffindor, escaped prisoners don't capture themselves.

But.

It's a technicality that niggles on his mind. If not for the Dementor, he'd have thought that weird not-dream, not-memory on the train had been a guilt-trip administered by his inner prefect. _Go to Dumbledore. Go directly to Dumbledore. Do not pass GO. Do not collect 200 Gallons…_

But there _had_ been a Dementor, and Remus is fairly sure this isn't how Dementors work. Soul-crushing despair, yes. Mind puzzles and guilt trips and skipping stones on the Black Lake, probably not, and fuck it all, he's passing GO so hard, because he needs to _know_.

And so he lets his feet carry him the familiar way to the Infirmary, fascinated and more than a little put off by how very, very little has changed around the place. The Welcoming Fest had only been the start. He'd been sat at the table with the professors – with the _other_ professors, oh _god_ -, about eighty per cent of whom had already been ancient fifteen years ago, and had since surrendered themselves to a sort of quiet desiccation. Severus Snape had been there, too, younger than everyone but still same old, same old, glaring at him in a familiar way - as if Remus needs to be put down, and Severus would be happy to do it.

Outside the Great Hall, even less has changed. Making his way along the corridors, he makes a point of not looking up from his scruffy boots any more than necessary. This place is largely history, wearing a tiny, fleeting present like a loincloth. Like a fig leaf. Every mouldering tapestry, every chip in the paint, every mysterious stain on the ceiling holds a memory, ready to trip him up, ambush him, carry him away to a time that is no more.

And until he has figured out a thing or two – until he understands exactly what bloody happened on the train today – that is a time that is best observed from a distance.

Which is easier said than done.

Time punches him square in the face when he opens the door to the Infirmary. It's the smell of disinfectant and peppermint that takes him back with vengeance. For a short, terrifying second, he is sure he is going to wake up in a bit, right in that there hospital bed at the far end of the room, and he's going to be twelve or fourteen or fifteen years old again.

But no. He's awake, he reminds himself, he's definitely awake this time, and definitely thirty-three, and nothing says this more clearly than the face that is now peering through the office door, sporting a stern expression. Because that face has grown older, too.

"Poppy!" he says. She must be what now? Forty, forty-five? There's still very little about her that suggests _matron_ , except probably to a teenager – but finally, _change_.

Her face breaks into a wide smile, and, after stern Minerva, charitable Albus, and slightly homicidal Severus, he's nothing short of delighted he's finally found someone who actually looks happy to see him.

"Remus!" she cries, and a second later he finds himself with an armful of nurse. "It's so good to see you!" She pulls back a little, hands resting on his shoulders momentarily, and looks him up and down. "You're not here for –"

"Not here for anything," Remus tells her. "I didn't see you at the feast and wanted to say hello."

"Oh, the feasts, they give me anxiety," says Pomfrey off-handedly, "I can't recall the last time I spotted a vegetable there –"

Remus grins. "Chips are technically vegetables, aren't they?"

"Don't you wish," says Pomfrey. "And those treacle tarts are just way too much sugar for developing bodies."

Remus takes this moment to peer over her shoulder. "Are those Honeydukes delivery boxes in your office?" he asks politely.

"They're _medicinal_ ," exclaims Pomfrey, "and speaking of which, you _do_ look a little peaky -"

"Gee, thanks -"

"And no wonder, with that Dementor on the train – I'm surprised the Infirmary isn't packed – those Honeydukes boxes won't last the week I'm sure - _Dementors_! Are you sure you don't need anything? Wasn't there a moon just now – oh, drat, I swear I used to know the lunar cycle from heart."

Remus lays what he hopes is a calming hand on her arm. "Poppy, breathe," he says. "Look around you. The school year hasn't even started. The Infirmary is empty. And I take Wolfsbane now."

"That's right!" she says, and her face lights up. "I was going to ask about that! How is it?"

He gives her a rare, genuine smile. "Life-changing," he says simply. "Poppy, I swear it's just me, a bottle of wine, and the declared intention to catch up. If you can spare the evening."

"Oh, come in, come in," she says. "And please forgive the clutter. People don't usually come here to chat."

"Yeah, I can tell," says Remus, and his smile widens into the sort of lopsided grin he's more at home with. "You're not required to get it all out in under a minute, Poppy."

She smiles. "Cheeky, Mr Lupin. I might have to inform your head of house. Out after curfew, too, I see."

He follows her into her office, past the rows of neatly made beds, the dustless medicine cabinets. "And I snuck booze into the castle, too," he says. "Please don't tell Minerva, I'll be in detention 'till Christmas."

Pomfrey stops just to turn and smirk at him. "Best get rid of the evidence, then. Oh, by the way, did you become a professor for the sole purpose of finally calling the staff by their first name without repercussions?"

"I'm not convinced it works like that," says Remus, "Argus threatened to flay my backside just for old times' sake."

" _Hippie_ ," says Pomfrey with what he's fairly sure is a wink.

Her office, in stark contrast to the spotless Infirmary, is crowded. Not messy, just full of things. Stacked against her desk are the boxes of Honeydukes chocolates he's already spotted, the walls are lined with shelves overflowing with books in all states of tatteredness, volumes of medical journals, cartons of informative brochures. Her desk is covered in a plethora of familiar journal issues, pamphlets, and notes, topped with a copy of "History of Penal Law in Wizarding Britain", left open on chapter two, "Azkaban", next to "A Cross-Referenced Guide to Mind-Affine Dark Creatures". Remus recognises them because his desk back home has been in much the same state for the past four weeks.

Pomfrey is cleaning the clutter away with both hands when he gets over his misplaced surprise. "Been reading up, have you?" he says.

She looks up from what she's doing. "They placed a _hundred_ Dementors outside the gates," she says. "Yes, I have."

But nothing is ever new in Hogwarts, Remus thinks as he remains in the doorframe, careful not to disturb Pomfrey's space until she's shifted things to her liking.

Eleven year old Remus hadn't paid a whole lot of attention during his first consultation with Pomfrey, but this he remembers clearly: Pomfrey's office, covered in notes and books and journal articles, all of them on Werewolves. Back then, it all had a hint of frustration about it: Spiky scrawled notes. Entire paragraphs crossed out. Ghastly depictions of Werewolf transformations corrected with heavy strokes of her quill. The way she treated books had seemed daring, almost illegal. He'd quickly become engrossed by it while his father did most of the talking.

There'd been a sort of dress rehearsal later, with the Whomping Willow and the tunnel and the Shrieking Shack. The Shack had been a repurposed barn building, but warm and inviting inside, and it had blankets and a sofa and, for some inexplicable reason, a piano, and he'd looked at his father, and his father had looked away, and he had felt very guilty about that piano because he'd known he was going to break it, and it did eventually break, years later, but not before Sirius got the chance to play him that god-damn fugue in G minor.

He's still trying to banish that memory from his head when suddenly the nightmare image of a Dementor hijacks his field of view. He jolts so hard it feels like waking up, like he's still asleep on that fucking train.

But no. It's just Pomfrey holding a printed booklet under his nose.

"I've owled the Ministry about twelve times," she says, "and all I got was a couple of lousy brochures for _adults_ –"

"Impressive," says Remus, still reeling a little. "They drew a Dementor and they made it _uglier_ –"

"No-one could tell me how they'd affect the children," says Pomfrey. "Just keep them away, they said. Ridiculous. Their influence is known to be super-additive, what if it breaches the grounds, or even the castle itself?"

Remus recalls a recent, rather technical paper from _Defence Today_. "It's a fairly complex function," he says tentatively. "They're moving about all the time, and you'd need to take into account geography, wind direction…"

"I did the maths," she says shortly. "Parts of the Black Lake, the Quidditch pitch, even the Divination classroom, all will feel it when the weather is right. And so, in turn, will the Dementors."

There's a hard and thoroughly disappointed expression on her face. "And the Ministry doesn't _care_ ," she says. "It's on us to protect the students. Are you planning to teach them the Patronus charm?"

"I've considered it," says Remus, and realises as he's saying it it's not good enough. "For my N.E.W.T. students. But they're awfully behind as it is, it's ridiculous. It looks like they haven't learned a _thing_ last year. "

Pomfrey sighs. She looks like she's going to point out he's teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, not Defence Against the Ministry-approved Exam Questions, but then thinks better of it.

"Oh, yes," she says, "you'll find they were taught by an incompetent berk last year. Tried to mend a student's broken arm once, managed to Vanish all the bones instead -"

Remus's hand involuntarily flexes in sympathy. "Yes, I've met Gilderoy," he says. "Sounds like something he would do."

"Look on the bright side," she says with exaggerated cheer. "If you ever need to know the difference between lilac and lavender, I believe they're all experts."

Remus looks down on himself. His clothes are, as usual, an inoffensive combination of assorted non-colours.

"Oh god," he says. "They'll all fail their exams and guess who'll get the blame?"

Pomfrey puts two wine glasses on the table, with perhaps more force than necessary. "Welcome to teaching?" she says. "Just the one glass, mind. I know they all _say_ they're fine – but there'll be nightmares tonight, mark my words."

Great. They haven't even sat down, and already Pomfrey has circled in on the matter that Remus was going to spend at least a bottle of wine and an hour to dance around. He's feeling the old impulse to just chicken out. Let matters be.

Consequently, he hesitates. "I can come back another day," he offers. "If you're busy."

"Oh, sit down, sit down," she says. "It was good for you to come, really. What did you bring?"

"Nothing fancy," he says. "Same old Château de Tesco we smuggled in for the Leaving Feast."

Remus is not exactly a wine connoisseur. In fact, he'd debated just rolling a spliff - he knows Pomfrey has about ten potions on heavy rotation that are more mind-altering than a few crumbs of hemp – but hasn't expected smoking to go over well in the hospital wing.

Pomfrey, however, has a pragmatic approach to social inebriation. "Works for me," she says.

She unscrews the bottle with a quick wave of her wand and pours them both a glass before holding hers up to the light, where it sparkles ruby-red, somehow looking five times more expensive. Then she sits down opposite him, and they clink glasses with a dainty _ping_ that somehow sounds far too fancy.

"So," says Pomfrey, after a sip. "What brings you here, Remus Lupin? The Dementor on the train?"

He raises his hands in protest. "I did want to catch up, you know" he says.

"It's been fifteen years," says Pomfrey. "We might have to pick and choose."

"I sent Christmas cards," says Remus.

"They're in a box on the bottom shelf," says Pomfrey with a smile. "Except for 1981, that one never got here," and this, right here, is the reason it would be very easy to dislike her, thinks Remus: Her unquestioned determination to put her finger _exactly_ where it hurts.

"I was in the hospital," he answers the question that isn't. "Moon gone wrong. Long story." Does it feel odd, defending himself for a perceived oversight he'd committed twelve years ago? It does. With Pomfrey, it also feels natural.

Long story it may be, but it's one she can probably piece together with the information she has. "It's okay," says Pomfrey. "It's not like I put a lot of effort into reaching out. But," and here she smiles again, "here you are. How can I help?"

It's maybe just a tad narcissistic, he thinks. Something to do with the medical profession. And much as he's loath to prove her right, there's still that part of him that remembers she's the one person in Hogwarts he's not supposed to ever, ever lie to.

Still, he delays his answer by taking a sip of wine. It's not very good wine, not a whole lot of nuances beyond tannins and acidity and what may very well be added sugar. He hadn't _wanted_ to jump right in, and even with Pomfrey asking directly, it still doesn't feel right.

On the other hand, he has an early start tomorrow, and spending half the night beating around the bush is probably a habit he should had left behind in the seventies.

"The Dementor on the train," he says.

"Knew it," says Pomfrey. She leans back, sizing him up. "Feeling a bit shaken up, are you? I suppose I don't have to explain to you that they will bring up your darkest memories."

"That's just the thing," says Remus and it comes out quieter and more deliberate than intended.

He remains silent for a very long moment, trying to coagulate his pervasive sense of unease into something words can describe. He doesn't look at Pomfrey's face, because what is there, pity? Of course she'd know the shape of his darkest memories.

" _How_?" he says finally. "How do they do that?"

"A rhetorical question, Professor Lupin?" says Pomfrey.

"I like to think of it as Socratic."

"Oh, you would," says Pomfrey with just a hint of friendly mockery. "They feed off your happy memories until there's nothing left. The bad memories come up to fill the void, like air rushing into a vacuum."

"Exactly," says Remus. "That's the popular theory . They're not interested in bad memories, it's just… physics. Well, mind physics. The question is. The question _is_ –" he stalls, taking a confused sip of wine, "If it's air rushing into a vacuum, does the air change?"

Yes, definitely pity. Or something else. "Sometimes the air carries lost things," says Pomfrey gently, and who knows what memories she's thinking of. Small-child memories, the bite, a four-year-old locked into a fortified basement for the night, none of which Remus remembers beyond what little his parents have told him.

"But not impossible things," says Remus. "Never impossible things. Dementors induce memories so accurate they've been used in witness interrogation, when there's a mental or magical block."

"What sort of impossible things?" asks Pomfrey.

"Very impossible things," he says.

A Dementor scuttling through the Infirmary window in 1974. Regulus Black on the edge of the lake, demonstrating proper stone skipping technique with a pale hand over Remus's scarred one, two years before they'd ever exchanged words. A nickname that hadn't come into existence until 1975. A train ride that happened twice, once with Sirius, once without –

"And it made me think," he adds. "What if -" He draws a deep breath. "What if we _underestimate_ Dementors?"

Judging by her narrowed eyes, this has piqued her interest. "Oh, the Ministry definitely does," she says.

"I don't mean the Ministry," says Remus. "I mean us. Me. Dumbledore. You. What if we are far from realising how powerful they really are?"

Pomfrey laughs suddenly, which is a bit disconcerting – Remus has an altogether high opinion of her, but her sense of humour never played much into that assessment.

"Were you just going to casually drop this into the conversation? I thought you were here to drink wine and catch up!" There are tears of laughter in her eyes. "Remus Lupin, you are _hilarious._ Tell me more."

"I don't exactly have a formulated theory here," says Remus. "I mean, I was dreaming when that Dementor stepped on the train, so that alone probably made things a fair bit weirder than necessary. But." He pauses. "What do we actually know about Dementors? You know, for sure?"

"Well, as you know, I did a spot of research myself –" says Poppy, waving at the heaps of notes stacked several feet high on her desk. "It's not a terribly popular field of research. It's hard to find actual investigations more recent than the nineteenth century, and that was a terrible time for scientific rigour."

"Do they think?" says Remus. "Do they have memories of their own? Do they have agency? Ambition?"

"Not according to the literature." Pomfrey takes a thoughtful sip of her wine. "Well, we do know they can be sent on missions, as long as the parameters are kept fairly simple," she says, referring delicately to their ongoing hunt for Sirius Black. "They can summon each other over considerable distances, indicating a mental link. A hive mind, perhaps. We also know that they're instinctual beings – they get distracted easily. My guess is that they're not a whole lot cleverer than ants. Or vultures. Or redcaps. Are you telling me you disagree?"

"Patience, Poppy. The theory is still a work in progress," says Remus. "How does the Ministry communicate with them? They're not deaf, but I'm fairly sure they can't speak."

"Ah," says Pomfrey. "I asked the Ministry the same question. You know, on the off chance those extremely dangerous, highly instinctual, easily distracted dark creatures hanging around the castle cause an incident. You know what the Ministry replied?"

Remus is unfortunately intimately familiar with Ministry pig-headedness. "Classified?" he guesses.

"Classified," confirms Pomfrey. "They did send me a preposterous pamphlet on the Patronus charm, however." She sighs. "You really picked a wonderful time to come back."

Pomfrey swirls the wine around in her glass, which, Remus has to admit, is clearly preferable to drinking it. She also rather looks rather impatient for him to pick up the threads he's lost – or rather, laid aside for later - over the course of this conversation.

Remus obliges her. To a point. "Okay," he says. "To summarise: We know they have total access to a person's memories. Even forgotten, suppressed, or blocked memories. We know they can parse the content of memories to some extent – at least enough to identify those they wish to consume. We know they're on a man hunt, but we also know they're blind. How will they find who they're looking for? It stands to reason they can identify a person if they have some sort of – I don't know, a pattern, a template. Something to check against the memories they extract."

Pomfrey catches on quickly. "Are you saying that –" she starts.

"I'm not saying anything right now," says Remus. "Just bear with me for a little while longer. Do you remember 1974? Specifically, the first full moon of the school year?"

Pomfrey just looks at him for a long while. For a moment he thinks she's forgotten – he might have expected an event like this to stick out in her memories, but her job is probably full of excitement.

Turns out she just needs a moment to toggle her mental focus. "That was when the wolf took off your arm, wasn't it? Well, no wonder -"

"That's the one."

She shakes her head. "That was a horrible year," she says, and reaches out until the tips of her fingers are almost touching his. "Can I see?"

Remus hesitates, but then, her curiosity has always been a force of nature.

"Please? I don't often get a chance for a long-term follow-up," she says. "And that was the first complete limb reattachment I've ever done on my own. Indulge me?"

He entrusts his hand to her, and she takes it, unbuttons his sleeve with a precise turn of her fingers, then draws up the fabric until his forearm is exposed.

Remus doesn't often contemplate his scars. His arms are definitely top of the list of things he ignores – it's where the wolf can easily reach, and by now they're a ravaged landscape, ridges and shallows, a relief of what might be hieroglyphs. On the surface, the message is fairly simple: Pain. Futility. Hiding. But at the same time, the absence of all three. The gap between moons.

Just below his elbow, there is _it_ : A jagged ring of scar tissue that circles his forearm, numb and, by now, faded to a silvery white. Underneath it, ripped muscles, torn sinews, splintered bone, scattered parts spelled back together with equal parts skill and bloody-minded perseverance.

"Does it give you any trouble?" says Pomfrey.

"Not in a long time," says Remus "The magic was a bit… erratic at first, but you were there for that."

He's lying just a bit, and he knows she knows. He had to re-learn spell-casting – where there'd been a steady flow of magic before, good for quiet, competent spellwork, suddenly there'd been a branched-out maze of conduits, his magic flashing across the gaps in arcs. The first few months had been scorch marks and desperation. And even in the long term, it had changed the _character_ of his magic, made everything come out just a touch more explosive. Funnily enough, it had helped in the war.

She turns his arm over now, her fingers tracing the network of scars that came after her, many of them old by now. If anyone can read the hieroglyphs, it's probably her. Her thumb, maybe out of habit, stops momentarily over the pulse point, before running over the sunken brand on the underside of his wrist. A sequence of letters and runes. That, too, hadn't been there the last time.

"That's quite enough," he says gently, and pulls his arm away.

"Apologies," says Pomfrey. "I forget, you're not my patient anymore."

She leans back in her armchair, arms crossed over her white robes, her clear blue eyes raking over him as if she's caught him in a lie.

"I thought the wolf had calmed down," she says. "Thought when it took your arm that was the worst of it. It came back, didn't it? After school?"

"Was bound to happen, probably," says Remus, pulling down the sleeve and closing the buttons. "It's a grown-up wolf, I suppose it's par for the course."

"Remus," she says. "I studied every single case report on adolescent lycanthropy I could get my hands on." She pauses, possible for dramatic effect. "The fact of the matter is, you should never have gotten better in the first place."

Remus holds his breath as if that could stop her from talking. But Pomfrey's face is closed off as she recalls no-longer needed pieces of knowledge. "You were turned at a younger age than most of them," she says, " and statistically, you should have been dead or permanently disabled by eighteen."

"And how many of these cases grew up homeless, or in a facility, or in a feral pack in the woods?" says Remus finally. "I was lucky. I was safe."

"Safe for others," says Pomfrey quietly. "You transformed in captivity."

Remus looks down at the hand he's retracted. Even in the soft skin between his knuckles, the ball of his thumb, the pads of his fingers, there's that imprint of pain, that web of scars, that exoskeleton he's built over the years. He's sort of suspected they knew what it was doing to him, the cellars, the Shack, the Ministry cages. Three fifteen-year-olds had figured it out, after all.

"Yes," he says. It's only three seventh of a lie.

"What happened, Remus Lupin?" says Pomfrey. "How did you survive? What made you better?"

Remus reminds himself they'd hidden this thing right under her nose once. If she hadn't figured it out then, she's not going to figure it out now. And if she does – well, then the secret is at last out of his hands, isn't it?

"You make it all sound so dramatic," he says lightly. "It waxes and wanes, you know."

"I thought you were going to die that time," she says bluntly. "When you were fourteen. I thought you were dead when I found you in the Shack, and I was absolutely certain you'd die before I got you to the Infirmary."

He blinks. That's news to him. "No," he says. "I think you got that all wrong. _I_ thought I was going to die. You had it all under control, remember?"

Pomfrey snorts. "I almost had you transferred to St. Mungo's against your father's wishes." After all these years, there's still disapproval resonating in her voice.

"St. Mungo's would have informed the school board," Remus reminds her. "Goodbye, Hogwarts. And then?"

"Surely a life is more valuable than an education?" says Pomfrey.

Remus shrugs. "We actually spoke about this, my father and I," he says. "The summer before, when it first got difficult. It was my decision, not his."

The disapproval is clearly not going anywhere. "Big decision for a fourteen year old to make, isn't it?" she says.

"Who else?" Remus holds her gaze. She's always criticised this about him – how he's so glib about his own life, but he's not: It's just that, after so many compromises, he'd needed _something_. A line in the sand. Something he wouldn't give up no matter what. Deep down, he sometimes thinks that this is the only thing keeping the wolf in check: That he won't do everything to save himself. And he'd bring the wolf down with him.

"It's a mess," says Pomfrey with a pent-up sigh. "I'm not surprised the Dementor brought this up."

Remus feels like the worst sort of pedant when he says, "Well I am. Because at least three things are odd about this." But if he doesn't get to the bottom of this now, it'll eat at him for the rest of the school year, he's sure of it.

"Well then," says Pomfrey, leaning back. "Count them up."

"One," says Remus. "Without going into detail, _it's not my worst memory_. Not by a long shot."

She wants to say something. The tension is hanging in the air between them, but he can't let her. They'd be here all night.

"In fact," he adds, "I hardly remembered it until today."

"As I recall, you had a funny reaction to the Dreamless Sleep Potion at the time," says Pomfrey. "You didn't make much sense at all for about two weeks after the full moon."

"Two," says Remus. "It wasn't even a proper memory. It contained things –"

"Impossible things, you said –"

He nods curtly. "Things I didn't know until years later. It contained things I'm fairly sure never happened. It contained things that probably _should_ have happened, but _never did_."

"Memories are not an immutable thing," says Pomfrey. "They're not formed once and then conserved. They remain plastic, they're overwritten all the time, amended, revisited." She pauses. "Soured. Corrupted. Especially, I fear, the memories of your school years. Am I right?"

Remus would have to drink far more before he answers that question. "Not the memories a Dementor brings up, usually," he points out. "They're renowned for unearthing the original trace. Even through forgetfulness. Even through memory charms. Even through distortions of time and wishful thinking. Even through amnesia."

"True," she says.

"Point three," says Remus, then he thinks it through. "No, it's too weird. Let's leave that one for later. But the question still remains, doesn't it? Why that particular memory? Two weeks during which I was high on Dreamless Sleep Potion, nothing made sense and I didn't know what was real or not?"

It's a question he's about to answer himself, but when he sees her sit back and think, he lets her.

"Obvious, isn't it?" she says finally.

"That's… _not_ the word I was going to use," says Remus.

"You said it yourself," says Pomfrey. "The Dementors are on a mission. They're looking for a pattern, a template…"

Remus closes his eyes, steels himself. "It's okay," he says. "We can name the elephant in the room."

"Sirius Black, then," says Pomfrey, _finally_ , and even if he's invited it, that name cuts the air between them like a guillotine. "Of course. It was a time when you relied on your friends a lot, wasn't it?"

"I think that's how the Dementor found that year," says Remus. "My friends were just… worried. They were around a lot. The Dementor must have sniffed him out."

"I remember," says Pomfrey. "Hospital wing like a train station." There's still a hint of disapproval in her voice. "So you're saying that the Dementor actively looked through your memories for a trace of Sirius Black?"

"Quite literally," says Remus, shivering as images from the dream come back to him. "It kept turning up in the corner of rooms. So yes, it did that. And worse, it disguised the search as a dream, and its own presence as part of it."

"Clever," says Pomfrey shortly.

Remus is quite relieved that Pomfrey is sharp enough to follow his thoughts so effortlessly, and yet still ignores the glaringly obvious: His friends had been around a lot for ten years of his life. Why, then, had _this memory in particular_ come up?

Remus is ignoring it, too. Eventually, he will have to meditate on the question why, when the Dementor was looking for Sirius Black, Remus served it the most nonsensical, drugged-up, never-happened memory he could find in a hurry.

"Did it find him?" asks Pomfrey.

And he will also have to meditate on the question why, even though Sirius Black had been all up in his business at the time, he'd been largely absent from the memory Remus offered the Dementor.

Almost as if he were hiding.

Almost as if he'd been _hidden_.

"… Eventually," says Remus. "But what it wanted was, I think, something it could use against him. Something that would help it find him."

"And did it find something like that?"

"There's nothing in 1974 that would help anyone find Sirius Black today," says Remus lightly. It's not even a lie. "He's changed too much."

Actually, he remembers uneasily, the Dementor had come bloody close. James had almost said it. Regulus had almost said it. Sirius himself had almost said it. Remus _had_ said it – _Padfoot_ – but had caught himself before the Dementor could understand.

 _Animagus_.

He really needs to meditate on all this.

A glance at the clock on the mantelpiece tells him the evening has progressed considerably, and he's barely halfway through his glass of terrible wine. Pomfrey has had even less.

"So, are you going to have a stab at explaining the third thing?" says Pomfrey.

"Sorry," says Remus distractedly. Maybe he's already meditating. "The third what?"

"You said there were three odd things about the memory the Dementor brought up," says Pomfrey patiently. "One, it wasn't your worst. Two, it contained things that never happened. Any progress on number three?"

Remus thinks long and hard. Then he asks, very carefully, "What else do you remember of that time, Poppy?"

She sighs. "Night's getting on, Remus," she says. "Can't you make a simple point without taking a detour?"

Remus feels weary by now himself, even as the puzzle is finally starting to come together. The Dementor had looked for Sirius in his memories, yes, and Remus had thrown it the most unhelpful memory he could find, also yes, and the Dementor had inserted itself into them anyway and _watched_ and _observed_ and _consumed_ , and Remus had twisted the narrative and hid what he could, and the Dementor had shown him exactly how it thought this thing was going to end, one way or the other, with Sirius Black swallowed whole by the void, and all in all it had almost been –

 _Communication_ –

The bile rising in his throat has nothing to do with the horrible wine. "It's the last detour, I promise," he says. "Please, Poppy. 1974, if you don't mind."

"It was an intense year," she says. "A year that stays in the mind, wasn't it? Not just you and the wolf. There was all the trouble with the Whomping Willow – I don't think that kid ever regained his full eyesight… Then there were the psychedelics. The Muggle flu epidemic. Someone kept stealing the Dreamless Sleep Potion from the Infirmary –"

"Ah," says Remus. He says nothing more.

"It sounds so insignificant now, in the grand scheme of things," says Pomfrey. "But I could have been in no end of trouble, it's a restricted substance… well, somewhat restricted. Still."

"Did you report it?"

"Of course not," says Pomfrey. "I hid a note in the screw top, saying to come talk to me, but they never did. It stopped eventually." She sighs. "Do _you_ know who stole it?"

Remus considers giving her his best _Who, me_? expression, but that hasn't worked on her in decades.

"I think," he says, "it might have been stolen either by, or for, Regulus Black."

He waits with what he has to admit is baited breath, because this is _it_ , he knows that much. This is where things come together.

Pomfrey, however, stares at him for a long moment, then shakes her head. "I don't think so," she said.

"Why not?" Remus doesn't know whether to be disappointed or not.

"He had a prescription," says Pomfrey. "Came down here once a week to pick it up. Stuck in my mind, really, rich kid who couldn't sleep. Scared of shadows and deep water and the leaves in his tea. Hard to believe someone like that would join You-Know-Who, or that You-Know-Who would have him."

"He defected," says Remus. "Not many people know." He rubs his eyes, starting to tire. "I suppose they _should_. Anyway, he ran and was murdered for it."

Pomfrey looks equal parts relieved and repulsed. "How?"

Remus is himself a little shaky on the details. "I suppose there is no safe way to defect from the Death Eaters," he says. "From what I've heard, the whole stunt seemed to be a mix of suicide and stupidity. Of course, the source was… biased, so what do I know."

In fact, he'd heard it from Sirius, who'd been broken and angry and so ready to dole out blame that everyone got a part of it, even Regulus, who couldn't argue back.

"And doesn't that describe the entire war," says Pomfrey, with a voice that is drier than the wine they're, by now, ignoring.

"Was he depressed, you think?" asks Remus carefully. "In 1974, I think."

Her answer is just as careful. "Thirteen-year-olds don't just get prescriptions for Dreamless Sleep Potion because they're happy and well-adjusted, Remus," she says. "Isn't this a bit of a wide detour? What's the third odd thing?"

"This, exactly," he says. "I always knew something happened in the Black family in the summer of 1974, something terrible, but I never found out what. It's not something I forgot. It's not something I repressed. It's something I _never knew_."

"And now you do?"

Remus thinks, turning over phrases in his mind. He feels like it's important to get this worded exactly right, this thing, this unexpected truth he's discovered. No longer does he wish to be alone with this horror, and for this, he has to make her _understand_ -

"Such things leave traces," he says finally. "Like a murder spatters the ceiling with blood. Like a drowning victim changes the currents downstream. It's something I never knew, but it still threw shadows. Hints, allusions, nightmares. The Dementor took them, and it constructed – _reverse-engineered_ – the thing that cast them. Perfectly."

Pomfrey is silent for a long moment. "Remus –"

"And the worst thing," continues Remus, "the worst thing is, _we should have guessed_. After all, Dementors draw up perfect memories. Even if the victim was Obliviated. Even if the victim was a baby at the time. You said it, memories aren't perfect, they just aren't. Our brains aren't made for it. Then where do these perfect memories come from?"

"What did it construct, then?" says Pomfrey. "What impossible truth?"

"Regulus Black," says Remus. "He tried to kill himself that summer, didn't he?"

In hindsight, he doesn't know what he expected. Poppy looks down and there's a hint of devastation in the stiffness of her shoulders, like he's glimpsed before, in those rare moments when she can't help a child. But then she looks at him and for a split moment he's certain she's going to tell him, _no, it's all wrong, you've got the wrong brother_ , and how the fuck hadn't he noticed then, it's not like they weren't _worried_ about Sirius –

Instead she says, "I don't know. He didn't talk much."

Remus breathes out. Frustrating roadblock it is, then. He's racking his brain for about the hundredth time today, but it's not taking very long. He's fairly sure he's never exchanged more than five sentences with Regulus, and exactly none of those before Fifth Year.

"Suppose you're right," says Pomfrey eventually. "Suppose a Dementor's powers are even greater and more terrible than even the pessimists among us expected. Why would the Dementor do that? It wasn't exactly… relevant, for lack of a better word."

"To send a message, I think," says Remus. By now he's really feeling the chill. "Resistance is futile. Don't hide a thing. It _talked_ , in the only way it knew how."

It's clear to him now. That Dementor had sought him out on the train because it had sensed the traces of Sirius Black in his memories, and it had opened its black and putrid mind wide and _talked_ and _threatened_ and _mocked_ , and yet, Remus's dreaming mind had hidden Padfoot for as long as it could.

And then, another thought, this one even more terrible. Is that why the Dementor swooped down on young Harry Potter, too? Does Harry retain memories of his godfather, tickling him with his long hair, teaching him patiently to say _Moony, Padfoot, Wormtail, Prongs_ , as if he hadn't been plotting to sell the baby out to Voldemort? Does Harry remember the shaggy dog he'd napped with, tiny fists curled tightly in its fur? Would a baby's scattered memories be able to betray Padfoot?

And wouldn't Sirius deserve it, just for that? Just for that fucking wink he'd given Remus when the baby had beamed up at them both, saying something that could have been "Moony" but also 'Noomy' or 'Oony'? Just for that fucking wink and the betrayal behind it?

"It talked to you," says Pomfrey flatly.

"Think so."

"And you talked back?"

"Well," says Remus, keeping his face carefully blank. "I set a Patronus on it, so I believe it got the message."

"Oh, god," says Pomfrey. "Are you going to tell the Ministry?"

Remus is about halfway through recovering from his heart attack when she adds, "About the Dementors."

"Oh, I'm sure they know," says Remus, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Why sent them on this man-hunt, if they were merely half-sentient prison guards?"

"Point," she says. "Seems like it's on us to keep an eye on the children, isn't it?"

Remus nods, and for a moment, they sit in companionable silence.

He's just had another idea, one he is definitely _not_ going to share. They'd fought, he and that Dementor. In his own head, on a battleground of his own choosing, with weapons the Dementor had forged out of sparse, confusing memories. Memories that Remus had _offered_ it.

So why offer it Regulus? Why had the kid come up in the first place?

 _You know why, idiot_ , he thinks. Not because he'd known Regulus Black in any meaningful way at all, no. Because Remus remembers (and he remembers, and he remembers): The time Sirius had found out his brother had joined the Death Eaters. The other time Sirius had found out his brother had died. Something in Remus still refuses to believe that grief like that – so raw, choking, all-consuming – could be faked, or else how someone could ever turn around from all that and serve Voldemort himself.

Because if there is one thing that Sirius was ever good at – is probably still good at, Remus thinks, hypnotising his neglected wine glass -, it's holding a grudge.

Remus is a little surprised when he comes to this conclusion. That somehow, impossibly, after twelve years, most of which were terrible, none of which were good, a part of him – the part that fights Dementors while he's asleep - still stupidly, naïvely _believes_ –

"Remus," says Pomfrey gently, and he realises she's said his name twice now. He looks up, and once again it seems Pomfrey is one step ahead of him.

"What?" he says eloquently.

"Call me a hippie if you must, but –"

Despite himself, he laughs. "I _always_ call you a hippie. Why?"

"I believe," she says, solemn now, staring into the depths of her wine glass, "I believe Azkaban is an abomination."

A horrible feeling starts spreading from somewhere behind his solar plexus. "Where are you going with this?" he says carefully.

"I believe his crimes were horrible," she says. "I can't even imagine a punishment that could possibly weigh up his sins."

"There is none," says Remus quietly. "It is not in the nature of punishments to undo the things he did."

"But if there were such a thing," continues Pomfrey, in her soft-spoken scholarly voice. "If there were a counterweight to this, some atonement, some repentance, if something could _possibly_ level this scale – don't you think that twelve years of Azkaban might come _close_?"

Remus takes a deep breath. "Poppy –"

It reminds him of what James had said, when he'd let Sirius back in, months after The Prank. _Hasn't he suffered enough_? It had never been the most convincing of arguments, except to people as unbroken and magnanimous as James Potter, but Remus had followed suit anyway. Because he'd suffered, too.

"I suppose it depends on what he does with his freedom," she says, now looking him straight in the eyes, and her gaze is bright and clear. "By the way, you're welcome to agree. I know you're a hippie, too."

He _wants_ to agree, and he's not quite sure why. Maybe because he does crave an ally in this, someone who understands his jealous, selfish, twelve year old decision to keep Padfoot to himself, even though Prongs and Wormtail are gone and the truth can't hurt them anymore.

But that is just it: Whatever Sirius Black does now, it's on Remus, too. The last thing he deserves is an ally.

"Please," he says, forcing his tone into something approaching conversational. "Let me ignore this issue in the privacy of my own head."

And before he can contemplate this further – before Pomfrey has a chance to even nod - there's a noise from the Infirmary, and without any fucking warning, Severus Snape sweeps through the office door.

Apparently, knocking is for imbeciles.

Snape's eyes sweep over the room – the mild chaos, the books, the boxes of chocolate, the Werewolf relaxing in an armchair holding a glass of red wine – and settle on Pomfrey herself.

"The Dreamless Sleep Potion," he says softly. "Sixty doses, as requested." He places two corked bottles on her desk.

"Thank you, Severus," she says. "I'm sure you remember Remus from your school days, do you?"

Remus tries to catch her eyes, tries to send her a warning, or, since it is too late for that, a mild scolding, but to what point? Pomfrey had been there for the aftermath of The Prank –Remus, half torn to shreds because he'd carried the brunt of the wolf's frustration, Severus, consumed by shock and righteous anger, but otherwise fine, and demanding reparation by way of Remus's execution, or expulsion, or at least complete, humiliating exposure. As if he hadn't guessed, as if he hadn't stalked Remus for years, as if he hadn't known better than walk into a trap set by Sirius fucking Black.

With that sort of shared history, even the force of nature that is Poppy Pomfrey can't force a new beginning.

"Unfortunately," says Severus, regarding him with less than a sneer. "I'm afraid I can't linger, Poppy. Some of us have lessons to prepare."

Despite himself, Remus gives him a nod and even a mild smile, and if Severus Snape were any good at smiles, he'd understand. _I remember_ , says that smile. _I remember you standing over my bed after I almost died at fourteen. I remember what you said even before you knew what I was_.

 _I'm still here_ , says that smile, _and I've got the job you want_.

So he's petty. So what. But Severus Snape _isn't_ good at smiles, and he sweeps out without a further word. Remus reads Pomfrey's wristwatch upside down. Gone ten.

"I should probably go, too," he says. "But let it be known for posterity I've already prepared all of my lessons."

"I'd have expected nothing less," says Pomfrey drily. "Go on, then. And I expect you to come back, we've still got most of that wine to go through."

He regards the bottle on the table critically, the half-empty glasses. "Or I could just roll us a spliff next time," he mutters.

"Remus Lupin, I am _shocked_ ," says Pomfrey, as she rises to accompany him to the door. "On a weekend, maybe. When the kids are off to Hogsmeade."

"Trust me," says Remus with a slight grin, "You're not as shocked as I am right now."

On the threshold, she looks him straight in the eyes, hand on his arm. "Seriously, I mean it," she says. "We're not done with this. Don't be a stranger this year."

Translation: She doesn't expect him to last.

Good, because he doesn't expect himself to last, either.

"Poppy," he says. "You're one out of maybe five people in this castle who's not over eighty or under eighteen. I guarantee you, I'll be round so often you'll want to be rid of me in no time."

"Looking forward to it." She laughs, stands on her tiptoes and gives him a kiss on the cheek. "Good night, Professor Lupin," she says.

"Good night to you, too, Madam Pomfrey," he says, knowing fully well he's not done with this.

* * *

After leaving Pomfrey in the warm light of her still-lit Infirmary, Remus takes the long way back, still thinking, thinking, thinking. He thought he'd had it in the end, grasped it by the tips of his fingers, a flimsy thread of truth, this close to unravelling, and then Snape turned up and everything was full of the wrong sort of memories -

Turning a corner, he very nearly runs over three tiny First Years, Hufflepuffs, judging by the friendly yellow trimmings on their robes. They are in the sort of quiet hysterics that comes from trying to move noiselessly and then running straight into a teacher anyway.

"We're not out of bed," pipes up the tallest of the trio, who comes up to maybe Remus's elbow.

With effort, Remus drags himself back into the real world. Feeling like the world's hugest hypocrite, he points out, "You really sort of are."

The children hold a brief, hushed conversation. "Little bit?" the tall one concedes. "But we were only trying to –"

Remus takes a closer look at the trio. Two of them are sort of protectively crowding the third, a tiny little girl with a tear-streaked face.

"Let me guess," says Remus. "Nightmares?"

The little girl is crying harder. She is clinging to the other two and they don't look too sure how they have acquired her in the first place, but peer up at Remus with a look that seems to say, "What can you do, eh?"

Actually, that seems to sum up Hufflepuff house rather well.

"There was a _thing_ on the train and it _spooked_ her and now she can't stop crying," says the tall one, "and she says she's cold, like even in front of the fire, and she's been sick like twice, and now we're all sort of spooked, I mean, it's just nightmares, right? It can't be here still, right, it can't?"

"Just nightmares," says Remus in what he hopes is a reassuring voice. "Trust me, you'd have noticed."

"Please, sir," continues the kid, "we can't have any more points taken off when the year hasn't even started, everyone will hate us –"

The 'sir' does something funny to Remus's brain. The sight of the little girl with her lingering nightmares of who-knows-what does the rest. "You'll want the Infirmary, I presume."

"Yeah," pipes up the medium-sized kid to the little girl's other side. "That was sort of the plan, only we got lost… first day, see. Big castle."

"Oh, you have no idea," says Remus. "Come with me, I'll walk you."

Still a bit wired, but ostensibly reassured that there seems to be a grown-up with at least some sort of idea what is going on, the children follow him.

"You, tall one," says Remus.

"Derek."

"And I'm Carlotta," the other one pipes up. "And that here is Mindy."

"Pleasure," says Remus. "I'm Professor Lupin. Derek, what did you mean, can't lose any _more_ points?"

"We ran into a teacher," says Derek. "He didn't even listen! Took points off and sent us back, but, you know –"

"Didn't exactly solve the problem," says Carlotta. "So we sort of… went back out?"

"Please, we don't want to get into any more trouble," says Derek.

"Say no more," says Remus in a tone that he hopes gives nothing away. "How many points?"

"Thi-thirty," says the little girl – Mindy - abruptly. "Ten each."

"Well, then," Remus says, just as they reach the Infirmary . He raps softly on the door. "Have ten each to Hufflepuff. For looking out for each other."

"I haven't –" starts the girl.

 _No_ , thinks Remus, but _you're ill,_ _and he shouldn't have taken any fucking points off you in the first fucking place_. Instead, he says, "I'm sure you'll find an opportunity," and gives her a friendly smile.

When Pomfrey opens the door, she just looks at him with an expression that clearly says, "Told you," as she ushers the children inside. He gives are a shrug in response.

The tall one turns around. "Thanks, Professor Lupin," he says.

"No problem, Derek," says Remus. "And don't you think I won't walk you back to your common room. You're really not supposed to be out on your own after curfew."

At this rate, it's going to be a short night, he thinks, waiting in front of the Infirmary. But then, weird sort of day…

Maybe it's because it's such a welcome distraction from, well, basically everything else, but suddenly Remus realises he's a lot angrier about the stupid thing with the house points than he rightfully should be. Because he's known since his second year, deep in his heart, that house points don't _matter_. They're just made up. Ergo: It's not the house points he's angry about.

He takes a deep breath, wills that anger out of him, that sharp, compelling impulse to march up to Snape's office and inform him that the castle is surrounded by Dementors, and if Snape ever actually went fucking outside, he might have fucking noticed.

Best not.

If they were on better terms, on any sort of terms at all - something he should probably _try_ to be except shit like this comes along _all the time_ \- he supposes he could ask Snape about Regulus Black, get insight on those last little details that elude him. They must have known each other, they were basically colleagues for a while, weren't they, and he can just imagine Snape's sneer right now, _Transparent, Lupin,_ he'd say. _The brother with a moral compass. Shame your Black wasn't more like him._

 _Fuck off, Severus,_ is what he wants to tell the Snape in his mind, _don't you dare talk to me about anyone's moral compass, not when yours only ever pointed to Lily Potter, but not enough, not even enough to keep that fucking prophecy to yourself -_

But it's petty, petty, petty, he's just bitter because how the fuck did _Snape_ turn out good when Sirius didn't, he's bitter because the Snape in his mind is so completely, overwhelmingly right: Remus Lupin really is as transparent as glass. This entire fucking trip down memory lane, it doesn't mean a thing. Wishful thinking, nothing more.

He's going to see Dumbledore first thing in the morning, and tell him the escaped prisoner Sirius Black can turn into a dog.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes:** As promised, part 4B :) It's the second update in two days, so make sure you've read part 4a, otherwise this might be a little abrupt.

What can I say, it was a wild experience writing this. Thank you for all your feedback, and I really appreciate reading your thoughts on how this is all wrapped up.

* * *

 **Still Life with Skull, part 4b/4**

* * *

Remus Lupin has been many things in his life, but calling him a man of resolve is probably a bit of a stretch.

It's not like he isn't willing to give this a good go. E for effort, he supposes. The first day of classes, he forces himself out of bed well before dawn. He makes a sad cuppa with one of the crumpled PG tips he's brought in his suitcase, wonders if he should bother the house elves for milk at this time of day, decides against it, has a wash, drags a comb through his hair, dresses in robes that are soft and threadbare with wear, pockets his wand, keys, and pack of cigarettes, marches straight in the direction of Dumbledore's office, and then straight past it.

The staff room is nearly deserted at this hour, lit only by a handful of low-hanging torches. In a corner, Aurora Sinistra is nursing a cup of herbal tea after a night of stargazing, and gives him a lazy wand salute without even looking up, the sparkles forming into constellations above her head before fading into the murky shadows. He waves back, crossing the room in quick strides like he belongs here, then remembers he _does_ belong here, and steps into the archive.

He dimly remembers this place from his mapmaking days. Even then, he'd thought it must be the most boring place in all of Hogwarts, with its rows and rows of filing cabinets and not much else. The room is technically the size of a broom cupboard. Centuries of extension charms have warped its dimensions to roughly those of an echoing, dusty Quidditch pitch.

The Black family has an entire row to themselves, starting in a time just after the Founding when years were marked in Roman numerals. Sirius's file is missing, of course – confiscated as evidence, probably collecting dust in a Ministry archive somewhere, awaiting a trial that never happened. But it's not the one he's looking for. The history of the Blacks, at least when it comes to Hogwarts bureaucracy, ends abruptly in 1979, when Regulus Black - in an attempt to distract himself from his impending death? - left Hogwarts with an absurd number of N.E.W.T.s.

If Remus has expected something particularly illuminating, he doesn't find it in Regulus's file. Quidditch captain 1975-78, Prefect 1976-78. No such accolades for the 1978-79 school year, but then again, a grand total of two detentions in that time, which, to Remus, seems a bit mild, considering the kid had been a Death Eater by then.

The problem is, Remus thinks, as he's holding Regulus's Third Year report card, the problem _is_ , he's come here with absolutely no idea of what he's expected. Transfiguration, E. Potions, A. Defence Against the Dark Arts, O. Charms, O. Arithmancy, E. Ancient Runes, E. Astronomy, O.

Divination, P.

Which, Remus muses, can mean exactly two things. One, Regulus Black was just plain balls at Divination, which Remus finds a tad unlikely – anyone who'd get through Arithmancy unscathed should have the brains to figure out how to stare ominously into a teacup while making shit up. Two, Regulus really put the passive in passive-aggressive and got back at his parents by failing out of the class.

It doesn't tell Remus why the kid hated stupid Divination in the first place.

Right, thinks Remus, as he's standing in the archive at stupid o'clock with a stone-cold mug of terrible tea in his hands. Fifteen years and he _still_ has to do everything around here. And since everything else refuses to make sense, it's once again on him to make a few things perfectly fucking clear.

Which is why, on his way out of the castle, he gives Dumbledore's office a wide, deliberate berth.

* * *

He's crossing the grounds at the first faint light of dawn, before even Hagrid is out. In the distance, he can see _them_ circling. Remus supposes he could always take the tunnel that leads from the Whomping Willow, if he wants to avoid them.

But then, that's not exactly the plan.

It occurs to him, not for the first time, that he might have this entire thing the wrong around, that maybe he's still fourteen and asleep on the train, still carried forward to that first serious encounter with fate. _Remember you might die within the day_. Suppose he did die. How would he ever know?

The day has an unreal quality to it. Behind him, the castle lies thick and immobile with sleep, stale air of dormitories and unopened windows. The only evidence anything is alive is birdsong, and the imprints his ancient boots leave in the thick, dewy grass. It takes him half an hour to get down to Hogsmeade, to wander the length of the sleepy village past the still boarded-up shops and bars towards his destination.

It. The place. The Shrieking Shack.

It looks a lot more decrepit these days, now that the spells are wearing off that protected it against the onslaught of an adolescent wolf. He crosses the unkempt garden, no more than a scraggly patch of rocks and leafy plants, pushing shrubs and overhanging twines aside, and touches his hand to the splintery wood of the Shack. It creaks in response, as if recognising an old friend.

It's chilly this time of day. Then again, September in the Scottish Highlands have never been a particularly toasty affair. Leaning against the wall, Remus fishes the beaten pack of Muggle cigarettes out of the pocket of his cloak. The lighter, he realises, must have slipped through a tear in the fabric, it's now swimming around somewhere in the inner lining of his cloak. He lights the cigarette with his wand instead. The smoke is warm and thick and scratchy, like gaseous sandpaper, and, he supposes, sort of deadly, its own Memento Mori.

He doesn't have to wait long. The first warning is, of course, an impossible thing. He turns his ear to the wall so he can hear the music from inside the Shack - Johann Sebastian Bach, fugue in G minor, the way Sirius had played it for him back in Fifth Year on the yet-unbroken piano, the exact same way, including the fiddly bit he messed up.

He lets it end, eyes closed. Only on that last forsaken note, Remus looks up and there's a dead rotting thing in front of him.

"You're the one from the train, aren't you?" he says. He finds a smile inside himself, and forces it up. "I suppose it doesn't matter. You're a hive mind, am I right?"

The thing stands eerily still, a fixed point wrapped in thin, rotten robes that move in the breeze. "Oh, don't look so worried," Remus says. "It takes a dark creature to know one."

Now a grey, slimy hand protrudes from under that rough-spun cloak, as if to reach for him. Or point at him. A gesture of familiarity? Certainly not something he's ever aspired to be on the other end of.

"What is it?" he says. "Want a fag? Sorry," and he takes a deep, lung-abrading drag, staring it down. "I only share with my friends."

The thing creeps closer, but not in the jerky, folding/unfolding way Remus'd seen in the dream-memory. He doesn't want to know why, but he does: Because that's what it looks like on the inside. Here in the real world, it just sort of glides.

With the increased proximity, unbidden memories come up, sharp and tasting of copper and salt: Lily's and James's funeral on a bleak November afternoon in Godric's Hollow. Peter's mum and how she cried when Remus went with her to identify her son from nothing but a finger. 3rd November 1981, Sirius's twenty-second birthday, his mugshot on the front of the Daily Prophet, the one with his face bruised and bloody after three days in a Ministry holding cell. Mass murderer shipped off to Azkaban as wizarding world rejoices.

The message is clear. _What friends_? the Dementor says.

Twelve years ago, he'd been nearly catatonic with it. But he's done it before, he reminds himself, he's been through this and he's very much taken the long way round. Through the onslaught of memories, he remains upright, if only for the comforting rigidity of the wall against his back.

"Finished?" he says, when that nightmare thing creeps back into his attention. "Because I've got a message for you. Well, you, I say. The entire hivemind. But then, that's why you came, isn't it? You saw the Shack in my memories, you knew I'd be here."

The fugue starts anew somewhere in his mind, an appropriate backdrop to this entire baroque tragedy. A reminder, too. Of course, there's someone else still alive who knows of the Shack, knows what it means. And if he ever meets that man again, he supposes here would be appropriate –

He puts the fugue out of his mind. Fifth year is way too close to the truth. It is, in fact, the heart of the matter, and here, now, matters of the heart should be entirely avoided.

"The wolf tore off my arm when I was fourteen," he says. "Sometimes, my spells come out a bit too much. A bit too forceful. Shall I demonstrate?"

It takes the Dementor a split second to understand, and it fights, God, it fights with all it's got. With all Remus has got, that is. All except Padfoot.

Memories flash like polaroids. A filthy London squat, 1984 - the Infirmary, 1976, after The Prank – an unnamed alley, 1983, tight damp space behind a rubbish bin - the forest of Snowdonia, 1980, _I've missed you most of all my children_ \- the Shack, 1974, and his arm lying on the other side of the room - the Werewolf Registry, 1982, silver brand searing the only bit of unmarred skin they could find on his arm – the nursery, 1964, a monster in two shapes, _aren't you precious still sleep with a night light I'll give you a bigger one just you wait I'll make you a bed on autumn leaves and hang a moon between the trees_ , and a child lies awash with blood, and moonlight scalds his skin like spilled tea.

James, Peter, Sirius.

Gone.

Gone.

Gone.

"My turn."

It's irony, he thinks, that he has Severus Snape to thank for this memory: The first round of Wolfsbane, last month. Waking up without the smell of blood in his nose, without the ache of cracked ribs, without bruises blooming under his skin or a concussion settling in his skull. Just a bone-tired, fuzzy mind that dared not understand just yet. He takes that relief and pushes down on it, distils it into something resembling happiness, and the Patronus springs forward, crosses the gap in his once-severed arm, and he allows the wolf to take its full shape.

But it holds back. The silver wolf advances slowly, not attacking, merely sniffing out the dead rotting thing. The thing, in turn, seems unsure, retreats its hand, draws its hood in, shrinks a little in the grey light of dawn.

"Take this, and tell them," he says. "Tell the hivemind. This is all you'll ever get from me." A memory that tells them exactly nothing, except that he's better now, and his happiness tastes stale, middle-aged, impoverished, a slab of dry toast when the Dementor is craving a feast.

A lie.

But then, Remus is a bit of a fraud these days.

The Dementor hangs around, like it still can't resist, like it's been starved for too long, like it's biding its time.

"Oh yeah," says Remus and he lets go of all the mercy he's ever found inside himself, too tired to keep this up. "You're a hivemind. Don't need a messenger."

A downward slash of his wand sends the wolf charging, jaw locked around that dead rotting thing, dragging it away, away, away. Somewhere in the early morning mist over the fields, Remus watches the Dementor dissolve into nothing, one less gaping hole in the world. Or maybe dissolve into _something_ , because what is a vacuum that ceases to exist? Won't it become a thing, rather than the absence of things?

Something to ponder later.

"Good dog," he says absent-mindedly, when the wolf returns to him. The cigarette still burning in his hand, he leans against the wall once more, lets the shimmering wolf roll up at his feet for once. It isn't often welcome, the wolf, and in weak moments Remus even pities it, so he lets it have this.

He breathes out. At last, under the protection of his Patronus, he allows himself a moment to remember, truly remember, even to immerse himself a bit: The Shack, the fugue, the Forest. And with him, the three friends that saved his life.

And now it's just him. Just him and a debt he still can't begin to pay back. Just a boy and his wolf that have come to a temporary understanding, against sanity, against reason, against every last inch of integrity Remus Lupin still holds in his body: They're keeping Padfoot a secret. The dog was their friend, they're not ratting him out.

The cigarette end burns his fingers, and he drops it, grinds it into the ground with the tip of his ancient boot, then sets off towards the castle. The silver wolf trots at his side for a bit, but the sun comes up and it's dissolving, a mere silvery blur when he crosses into the grounds, a faint mirage when he stops at the main entrance to a castle that is, at last, starting to wake up. He looks back over his shoulder to where the Shack lies hidden in the September haze.

It's still chilly despite the rising sun, and Dementors are circling the castle in the distance, but maybe, he thinks, maybe this nightmare can be over.

If not now, then soon.

* * *

 _The end_.

* * *

" _Do you think we should wake him up?" Ron asked awkwardly, nodding towards Professor Lupin. (…) "I suppose he is asleep?" (…). "I mean – he hasn't died, has he?"_ [Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Bloomsbury edition, p. 63]

 _Harry had a clear view of the bodies (…): Remus and Tonks, pale and still and peaceful-looking, apparently asleep beneath the dark, enchanted ceiling._ [Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Bloomsbury edition, p. 531]


End file.
